In 2013, then Secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Corazon Juliano Soliman and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes went on a study tour in Brazil organized by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). They understood Brazil’s 1 Zero Hunger Program, part of which is the Bolsa Familia, like the Philippines’ 4Ps. Following the study visit, the DAR started drafting a framework modeled after Brazil’s Food Acquisition Program, more popularly known by its Portuguese acronym Programa de Aquasicao de Alimentos (PAA). The PAA and Bolsa Familia are part of the Zero Hunger Strategy of Brazil or the Fome Zero Program. The framework converged the country’s efforts on hunger mitigation, poverty alleviation, and food self-sufficiency. The Fome Zero program, introduced by Brazil’s former President Luiz Lula da Silva in 2003 as the centerpiece of his social policy, is a highly state-driven program enforced through a constitutional mandate and several state laws. Special privileges, such as exemption from the competitive bidding process for food supply procurements, are also provided to family farmers. The learning exchanges between the Philippines and Brazil led to the inception of the Philippine government’s Partnership Against Hunger and Poverty Program (PAHP), spearheaded by DSWD, DA, and DAR.

The PAHP primarily aims to enhance food security and increase farm incomes by improving small farm productivity, ensuring markets for products, and improving nutrition by ensuring a continuous supply of cheaper and nutritious food items to the community, especially children in daycare centers. It is thus designed to connect the supply and demand sides, i.e., channeling farm products towards the communities and government users such as daycare centers and hospitals. Through the DA and DAR programs on rural infrastructure, credit, farm production inputs, and agri-extension services, the farmers were supported to increase their productivity and linked to institutional markets. These markets were the government feeding programs of the DSWD.

Aside from the provisions to the institutional feeding programs and support services to ensure supply from Agrarian Reform Beneficiary Organizations (ARBOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs), the components of the EPAHP have also expanded to include the following: (i) credit support to CBOs, (ii) support for the establishment, operation, and sustainability of agricultural facilities and technologies, food hubs, central kitchens, and other facilities, (iii) technical and research assistance from the development and other local partners, (iv) advocacy/campaign and stakeholder’s education, and (v) demand generation activities and provision of services on health, nutrition, and family planning.

The program is an excellent example for this case study as it addresses the challenge of linking family farmers with institutional markets that will ensure sustained purchases. It is also interesting to look at how the program evolved from one limited to only three pilot regions and implemented by three leading agencies to a full-blown program with a nationwide scale and expanded number of implementing agencies and actors.