MANILA, Philippines — Resilience has become a buzzword today amid concerns brought about by the climate crisis. A quick Google search would define resilience as springing back into shape or withstanding or recovering quickly after an incidence.
In any case, at its core, resilience measures the capacity of something or someone to bounce back after a setback, whether anticipated or unexpected.
And for Filipino farmers and fishermen, resilience is an expensive concept to afford. For the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), building resilience in agriculture and fisheries communities is worth every penny.
The Philippines is FAO’s seventh largest project delivery in the Asia Pacific region with some 20 projects amounting to a total of $43 million this year.
Some of the significant areas of cooperation covered by the projects are agro-entrepreneurship, sustainable watershed management, climate change adaptation and social protection.
The FAO noted that agriculture and fisheries remain the “most concerning” economic sector as it face myriad of challenges from production decline to rising poverty incidence.
In the Philippines, the international agency aims to contribute in resolving agriculture and fisheries problems such as low farm productivity, high production costs, fragmented value chain, inequitable income distribution and climate change woes.
FAO representative in the Philippines Lionel Dabbadie noted that agriculture and fisheries are “emerging” as a priority sector of the Philippine government after over a decade of continuous decline as highlighted in President Marcos’ State of the Nation Address and series of policy reforms at the Department of Agriculture.
But if there would be one glaring challenge that must be immediately addressed to ensure that farmers and fishers have a sustainable future, then that would be the worsening climate change.
And here, Dabbadie points out, is where building resilience comes in. The turn of the new decade saw the world grappling with rising temperatures caused by climate change resulting in unprecedented shocks and disasters.
And for a country like the Philippines, which ranks as the most disaster-prone country in the world, it can only mean bad news.
“Philippine agriculture has to be resilient. And we know it is possible,” Dabbadie said.
“We are not here to replace the government. What we provide is leveraging to help them access new funds,” Dabbadie added.
He cited the case in November when six typhoons hit the Philippines in a month - four within the span of 10 days - as a concrete evidence of the ill effects of the worsening climate crisis.
“This was never seen before and it has created new challenges for everyone. We saw that in addition to the destruction by each typhoon, there is also the cumulative impact,” he said.
“When (Typhoon) Pepito was approaching some of the NGOs told us that they have already exhausted their resources because of the previous typhoons. So we need the new approaches and that is the new challenge that we need to face,” he added.
A new approach that the FAO is pushing for is the so-called anticipatory approach or AA. It is a holistic response to disasters that incorporates capacity building, early warning response, cash assistance and collaboration.
One of the critical components of AA is the capacity building that involves dissemination of agro-climactic messaging and educating farmers and fishers on the ground about the ill effects of climate crisis.
At the center of AA, however, is the unconditional cash transfer provided to farmers and fishers ahead of the expected disaster, making it different to the usual aid provided to affected people after a calamity.
The cash assistance amounts to P3,300 per beneficiary and is given once an established threshold for a natural calamity has been breached.
The amount is equivalent to more than a quarter of the P12,000 estimated minimum expenditure basket set by the FAO that includes food, water and shelter.
Last month, FAO activated the AA twice. First, in Isabela where some 963 farmers and fishermen received assistance. Second, in Catanduanes and Northern Samar where over 6,400 farmers and fishermen benefited.
The cash assistance was financed by the funding provided by the German Federal Foreign Office provided to the FAO Special Fund for Emergency and Rehabilitation Activities.
The cash assistance, FAO said, allowed fishermen to protect their livelihoods ahead of the typhoon. Only 17 out of the 283 boats of the farmer-beneficiaries were damaged by typhoon, according to the FAO’s post-monitoring report.
Some of the beneficiaries used the money to buy nails to repair their houses, wood for their boats, pay debts, allowance for kids and even fuel to be able to fish again immediately after the typhoon.
And no beneficiary used the cash assistance to gamble, said Ruth Honculada-Georget of the FAO.
The FAO recognizes that there is a need to change beneficiaries’ behavior so that they would not waste the money that they get. The FAO said they conducted a year-long capacity building and education drive to make the prospective beneficiaries aware of the program’s nature.
The AA complements the aid provided by the government, cognizant of the fact that state budgetary support is limited, according to FAO.
In the future, the FAO hopes that the AA would be institutionalized the local government level allowing the state to embrace a new approach in providing aid and empowering their constituents against disasters.