The Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) announced that they’re going to allow farmers and fishermen to continue working to ensure that there’s enough supply of food in the country amid the enhanced community quarantine in the country.
During a press conference, Cabinet Secretary Carlo Nograles said that healthy farmers, fishers and agribusiness personnel by the recommendation by the Department of Agriculture (DA) were allowed to do their job.
However, they’re still subject to “implementation of strict skeletal workforce and social distancing measure,”
They also allowed agriculture supply outlets to open and also veterinary clinics.
IATF also approved the unhampered movement of supply being used for agriculture including food packaging and manufacturing materials.
The Philippine agriculture department already asked P31-B supplemental budget to the government to ensure food security amid COVID-19.
“With this pandemic, there is tightening of global food supply and we know that when there is not enough food, the disorder is probable. While improving our food adequacy level, we should aim for food security. If no action is done, the threat of hunger is as real as the threat of the virus,” said Agriculture Secretary William Dar.
“We need to improve efficiencies in production and enhance projects and activities to ensure affordability and availability of food supply,” he added.