More than 700 Filipinos held a protest in front of the Department of Agriculture headquarters in Quezon Elliptical Road, Quezon City on October 21, 2024 as part of Asia-wide protests, calling on Asian governments to build sustainable, climate-resilient food systems that ensure adequate and affordable food for all.

The protesters stressed the urgency of their calls “in the face of intensifying impacts of climate change–including record-breaking typhoons, floods, and landslides–devastate the agricultural sector, increase food insecurity, and cost billions in losses and damages.”

The mobilization in the Philippines was led by the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD) and conducted on the first day of the UN Committee on World Food Security’s annual plenary session, where governments will discuss and endorse policy recommendations on global food security. This year’s plenary session also marks the 20th anniversary of the Right to Food Guidelines, a framework adopted in 2004 by the member states of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to ensure access to adequate and sustainable food.

Other APMDD-led mobilizations were held in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

APMDD said “the actions also coincide with the start of the Annual Meeting of the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), prompting campaigners to demand accountability for the WB-IMF’s promotion of neoliberal economic policies, which have weakened food systems across the Global South by enabling the corporate ownership of seed systems and opening up land tenure arrangements to international investors.”

Demands raised by campaigners included the return of food, land, and water systems to the people, reparations for decades of harmful policies, and the cancellation of unsustainable and illegitimate debts to free up fiscal space for climate action and essential services.
In anticipation of COP29 in November, the protesters also demanded the “payment of climate finance from Global North governments, as a form of reparations for the destruction of the Global South’s food, land, and water systems.”

APMDD said “as governments prepare to negotiate a new climate finance goal, campaigners emphasized the need for adequate, public, and non-debt-creating climate finance to flow towards adaptation plans for food and agriculture.”

APMDD regional coordinator Lidy Nacpil said “this year has been devastating for the farmers and fisherfolk on the frontlines of the climate crisis.”

“In September, Typhoon Yagi killed over 800 people in Southeast Asia and cost over $15.8 billion in economic loss and damage. Earlier in the year, El Niño cost the Philippine government 9.89 billion pesos worth of agricultural losses, with rice making up 48% of those losses. By the end of the dry season, nearly 200,000 farmers and fisherfolk were affected, requiring 8.59 billion pesos worth of financial aid,” Nacpil said.

PHOTOS BY LEI VENTENILLA / for Mata: Asia Press Photo