Problem Solving the Philippines: Idea Post. Can we stop and talk a while?
By Giancarlo Angulo
My work as a USAID subcontracted consultant from 2020-2025 for the RESPOND Project has given me a view of how you move mountains.
You do it one stone at a time. You talk about it. You talk about it a lot. You convince people, from the frontliners to the top people and everyone in between. Any level you skip means less continuity and less chance for you to move a mountain. I am forever grateful for that experience as it has honed how I see a lot of policy questions and implementations. I am proud to say that all the IT systems that we deployed then are still being used, actively maintained by the people within those organizations. Our leadership was fully committed to sustainability and in this case sustainability means that the projects are fully owned and supported by the people who stay.
Long way of saying moving mountains need to start with an idea. Like the previous post (Problem Solving Education: Proposal 001).
The idea is simple. A system is only as strong as its weakest link. In line with the lowest to the highest of the first paragraph the strength of a system would be the interlocks and cooperation that it would entail. Once this is set then the bureaucracy will animate itself and protect what it now considers its own.
The idea is using the School Feeding program as an anchor for food security and agricultural support.
TLDR: Canning facilities will allow the farmers who previously trashed their produce to save it. The school feeding program is a good venue to sell these canned produce.
This is actually already done in a province in Bicol. A friend introduced me to the Gubat St. Anthony Multipurpose Cooperative (GSAC) in Sorsogon, the largest multipurpose cooperative in the Bicol Region. Its agri-services arm delivers pasteurized and sterilized milk to school divisions in Sorsogon and Albay, and to DSWD. Its dairy operation was seeded by the Philippine Carabao Center, an agency of the Department of Agriculture, as I was told by an acquaintance who knows the cooperative.
I am proposing to expand this model by starting with canned vegetables and eventually canned meat.
As long as this starts, it can be expanded.
The problem: the dump and the shortage in the same month
In August 2026 Benguet farmers dumped vegetables by the roadside because farmgate prices had fallen below what it cost to grow and haul them (Daily Tribune, 17 Aug 2026). In the same weeks, retail prices of onion, garlic, potato and eggplant in Metro Manila rose by P20 to 50 a kilo (FreshPlaza, 21 Aug 2026). It is not new either: tomato farmers in Nueva Vizcaya got about P5 a kilo at the farm in March 2025 while markets sold at P20 to 25 (GMA Regional TV, 26 Mar 2025).
Karl Garcia made the larger point in From Abundance to Nourishment: abundance is not food security until it is preserved, stored, moved and affordable. Canning a glut is one way to do the PRESERVE and BUFFER parts of that. What it still needs is a buyer who is already there when the cans come out.
Why school feeding is the anchor
A buyer that exists, has a budget and already points at cooperatives:
- DepEd’s School-Based Feeding Program is about P25.6 billion for 4.63 million learners in SY 2026-27, up from P11.8 billion the year before (The Post/PNA, 25 Mar 2026).
- The cost per meal is set each year in DepEd’s program parameters. The agreement template that DepEd’s June 2026 order attaches for LGUs funds fortified meals at P22.00 a meal, which matches a May 2026 division memo that gives P22 for food plus P3 for operations. I read the order’s full text, attached to a regional transmittal.
- The bicameral version of the budget ties the program to direct purchase from accredited farmer and fisher cooperatives under the Sagip Saka Act, RA 11321 (Daily Tribune, 15 Dec 2025).
- GPPB’s Circular 02-2025 defines covered products as including processed agricultural and fishery products, so a canned product is not excluded on its face. The supplier still has to be an accredited cooperative or enterprise (text).
That is the interlock I mean in the opening: a surplus that today has no buyer, a feeding program whose budget points it at cooperatives, and a rule that already allows processed goods from those cooperatives.
The milk precedent
Milk is the working example. The Daily Tribune reports that school milk is bought from dairy cooperatives and processors under Sagip Saka, with 113 of them as direct beneficiaries (1 Aug 2026). The Philippine Carabao Center (PCC), the DA agency that assists dairy cooperatives, counts 43 assisted cooperatives supplying DepEd’s feeding program and 41 supplying DSWD’s, together about P2.07 billion (PCC, undated).
In Bicol, the cooperative from my opening, GSAC, was described by the National Carabao Conference on its Facebook page on 18 September 2025: founded in 1964, over 71,000 members in 18 branches. According to GSAC’s annual report as quoted there, its Triple 2 Agri-Industrial Corporation delivered P12,458,886 of sterilized milk and P36,713,705 of pasteurized milk in 2024, to the school divisions of Sorsogon Province, Sorsogon City, Tabaco City, Ligao City, Albay Province and Legazpi City, and to DSWD.
Milk has things vegetables don’t: a dedicated channel through NDA and PCC, its own budget line (P1.848 billion for 2026) and a DepEd-DA order on sourcing. Canned vegetables have none of these today, so the milk model is a precedent to copy, not a template that transfers as is.
To read more about what PCC did to build this supply chain, see Eric Palacpac’s 2010 study of its National Impact Zone program in the Journal of Rural Cooperation. It describes dairy buffalo development as built through negotiations among PCC, cooperatives, farmers and local officials, with PCC field technicians and program staff as go-betweens. That is the interlock I mean in my opening. (I could read only the abstract online; the full text is on AgEcon Search.)
Fresh first, and not about cheaper food
Fresh comes first. When local vegetables are available, schools and DSWD should buy them fresh, and the school feeding rules already lean that way. Canning is for the days when fresh doesn’t work: when there are no buyers, when hauling costs more than the produce is worth, or when relief goods have to sit in a warehouse for the next typhoon. That is why the proposal has two outlets, the school feeding program and DSWD relief goods.
This is not a proposal to make food cheaper. It is a proposal to start something that wastes less. The Philippines imports about 99% of its dairy, according to NDA’s administrator in May 2026 (ECCP). I would guess that local milk costs more than the imported kind, and I found no current price comparison. We accept the higher cost for what it builds: a local supply, a market for farmers and a cooperative that keeps going. Canned vegetables are the same kind of trade.
What this is not
- Not a replacement for the hot meal. DepEd’s June 2026 order calls for hot meals, with a combination modality that recommends hot meals for at least 60% of the cycle menu and NFPs (fortified products) provided alternately, and a rule that LGUs under the LGU-led modality serve hot meals on at least 60% of feeding days. I found nothing in it on canned food or sodium. It allows NFPs alone only as a transitional modality, with regional approval. Canned vegetables fit as an ingredient in the hot meal or as a supplement.
- Not proven cheaper. I found no figure for what a canned vegetable portion costs against the P22 allowance. That has to be priced before anyone claims it fits.
- Not salt-heavy. DepEd’s 2017 canteen rules treat 200 mg of sodium per serving as the top of the Yellow band. That rule covers canteen sales, not feeding meals, so I would use it as a self-imposed spec, not as the law. Most conventional canned vegetables would need a no-salt-added or reduced-sodium recipe.
- Not a fix for every glut. Imports timed with the harvest, smuggling and typhoon losses are separate problems. This addresses the case where a farmer has a crop, a low price and nowhere to take it.
- Not a new building first. Eleven cold storage units in La Trinidad were reported idle in August 2026, citing high storage fees. A canning plant that waits for gluts would sit idle in the same way, so the buyer has to be committed before any construction.
The proposal: a pilot, not a program
- One region with a recurring glut (Cordillera vegetables or Nueva Vizcaya tomatoes) and one DepEd division that already runs central kitchens.
- One or more accredited cooperatives as the sellers, so Sagip Saka applies.
Processing: three options, to be compared in the pilot.
- Toll processing at an existing FDA-licensed canner. Fastest and least capital, but it depends on a canner agreeing to take seasonal, variable volumes.
- A shared mobile unit, such as DOST’s FoodtrIP retort module. A rotating unit avoids the idle-plant problem, but I found no published capacity, cost or user-fee figures. PCC also reports retort facilities in Isabela, Muñoz, Batangas and Sorsogon that move sterilized milk in bulk to remote areas, so shared retort processing already exists in this supply chain.
- A cooperative-owned hub. Most ownership and the clearest fit with the Sagip Saka supplier rule, and the most capital at risk. No usable capex figure exists yet, and the idle cold storage in La Trinidad shows what happens when volume is not guaranteed.
I would start with the first two and let the pilot’s utilization numbers decide whether the third is justified.
Scale. Whichever option wins, the units could be small: micro canning at the barangay or municipal level, aggregated at the provincial or regional level. Small units sit near the fields, so a farmer doesn’t have to haul a perishable crop for days to find out nobody is buying. Aggregation gives schools and DSWD one supplier of record and one standard to buy against. Food safety and who licenses each small unit are open questions, listed below.
- A written offtake commitment from the division for a stated volume in the lean season, before the first harvest is bought.
- Vegetables first. Canned meat comes later, and it is a different problem (low-acid, higher cost, a separate supply chain). I have no evidence on it yet, so this post does not argue for it.
How I would know it worked, borrowing Karl’s measures: kilos diverted from dumping, farmgate price against the glut price, plant utilization, cost per serving against the P22 allowance, sodium per serving, and the share of stock eaten before expiry.
A bureaucracy that protects what it considers its own will protect a bad program as faithfully as a good one. So the pilot should carry its own exit: published measures (cost per portion, produce saved, rejection rate at school, effect on the farmgate price), a fixed review date, and a rule that it continues only if the numbers say so.
Where I need help from government
- GPPB or the DA Sagip Saka desk: may a cooperative buy from its members and then process, and may a government-funded plant supply cooperatives? GPPB Circular 02-2025 is silent on both, and the answer decides whether this structure is allowed as written.
- DepEd or GPPB: DepEd’s order prohibits subcontracting feeding operations. It is unclear whether buying a processed ingredient from an LGU or cooperative plant is caught by that rule.
- FDA and DOST-ITDI: I could not find a Philippine rule on thermal-process validation for low-acid canned foods, and I do not know who would license a micro canning unit. This is a stated unknown, not a claim that no rule exists.
How I could be wrong
- Canned food may simply cost more per serving than fresh or dried food at the P22 level.
- A guaranteed buyer for surplus could encourage overplanting. A floor price tied to DA’s early-warning forecasts and a cap per cooperative would be needed, and I do not have evidence that settles it.
- Rescue buying stabilizes farmer income. It does not replace income policy, and I agree with Karl on that.
Why this series
The problem solving series is about trying to chip at the problems of the Philippines. It is about finding solutions that may work because we will never admit defeat.
Sources
- Karl M. Garcia, From Abundance to Nourishment, joeam.com, 14 Oct 2026
- Daily Tribune, Benguet dumping, 17 Aug 2026
- FreshPlaza (from Khaleej Times), 21 Aug 2026
- GMA Regional TV, tomato dumping, 26 Mar 2025
- The Post/PNA, SBFP P25.6B, 25 Mar 2026
- Daily Tribune, bicam and direct purchase, 15 Dec 2025
- GPPB Circular 02-2025 (text)
- Daily Tribune, school feeding and dairy farmers, 1 Aug 2026
- Daily Tribune, DepEd-DA guidelines, 9 Jul 2026
- DepEd order on the School-Based Feeding Program, 4 Jun 2026, with annexes, attached to a Negros Island Region transmittal (PDF, scanned; text read by OCR)
- DepEd Order 13 s. 2017 text (mirror)
- DOST-ITDI, FoodtrIP aseptic launch, Jul 2025
- Palacpac, E. (2010), Spurring Dairy Buffalo Development in the Philippines through Cooperatives, Negotiations, and Networks, Journal of Rural Cooperation 38(1): 1-17 (abstract only)
- Philippine Carabao Center, Milk Feeding (undated)
- National Carabao Conference, Facebook post on GSAC, 18 Sep 2025
- ECCP, NDA administrator on 99% dairy imports, May 2026
Lovingly made with Claude.
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[…] the kind of idea that needs a lot of people to move one stone each. As with the previous idea post (Can we stop and talk a while?), this one starts with a good idea and asks who should […]
Nice, this addreasses the issurs raised just recently.
ahem, canned vegies if bought by bulk should be cheaper, not dearer. some manufacturers are happy for the sale of bulk products that they are willing to waive the delivery fee.
ah, excuse me po. someone put me on the straight and narrow. those supplier kuno of the school’s the food feeding are private enterprises and not charity workers, and as such, they have to turn a profit or their business will not be sustainable. it is not illegal if they dont pass on discounts.
a few years ago a friend was involved in school feeding and it was a labor of love. I think schools are allowed some leeway on how to do things.
if we cannot get dairy as in cows milk since we dont have plentiful milking cows, can we not use coco dairy blends and some fortified coco skim milk instead? there might be kids who are allergic to cows milk that cause intense itching and red rashes on their skin.
we have plenty coconuts around that can be milked, soya beans can also be milked too. both can be used to combat stunting and malnutrion. maybe not good in feeding babies and newborns as both types of milk dont have the required sat fat needed by babies to reach their ideal healthy weight.
have you see soldiers ready to eat meals? I heard the packed meals are packed with enough nutrients giving soldiers enough energy to go about their business of fighting enemies and defending our country. I was thinking, maybe similar type packed meals can be handed out to school children. freeze dried food can be revived with the addition of water, karlG would know as he knows all about prepacked soldiers ration.
Excellent. Expand AFP supply systems to schools. Defend the country by having strong, smart kids.
Seems a doable proposal to step into a system with a program built to be reasonable, and succeed.
By the way, I really like your “How I could be wrong” insertions. They recognize there are pragmatics we may not wholly understand, or circumstances that may change. Excellent.
The economist Albert Hirschman’s theory of Unbalanced Economic Growth, which argues that developing nations lack the capital and resources to grow every needed sector at the same time (“balanced growth”) and as such needs to choose which “path” to take, seems useful here. In Hirschman’s Two Paths, a developing nation needs to choose to apply limited capital and resources towards either infrastructure (i.e. excess capacity) or productive activity (i.e. input shortage pressure).
For example, the options in the Philippines agricultural case:
• Build the support first (roads, power, storage), even before it is fully needed, and let farmers grow into it. Hirschman called this “excess capacity.”
• Let farms grow first, and let the shortages that follow force the support to be built. Hirschman called this “shortage.”
I don’t think it was planned this way, but the Philippines fell into the second path. But something wrong happened along the way as shortages did not force action to build supports since no one is answerable to the whole chain.
I find it useful to think of complexity in terms of systems (engineering). The system can be broken down into subsystems and components (it can be more fine-grained, but I am simplifying). Each level of hierarchy has one accountable owner who is responsible for their domain.
In the Philippines there are often multiple overlapping agency jurisdictions and owners, causing confusion. For example, farm roads are chosen by the DA but built by the DPWH. When stuff goes sideways it is not clear which agency is responsible for correcting the defects. Thankfully there are emerging examples of systems thinking, such as the article highlighting the school milk program where several agencies are running on a unified and shared system — a better model.
Sequencing also really matters so that there is a blueprint of what needs to be done, and most risks are identified prior to starting. For example, a rough sequence would be:
• Use and measure what already exists: switch on idle storage, fix the queue, publish how much each facility is used.
• Have schools make a written promise to buy fresh produce, sorted by quality, paid on time, with a volume cap. (e.g. Japan’s open-ended rice purchases ended with farmers paid to grow less when the volume cap was reached.)
•Pay an existing canning plant to process leftovers instead of building a new one.
• Build more only where steps 1 to 3 show a need.
Farmers also need predictability, and predictability requires consistency. So school meals can be a type of guaranteed buyer so that farmers can plan for the next planting season. I ran some quick numbers based on the figures in the article and came up with a school feeding program would need about 74,000 tons of vegetables a year for starters, yet Benguet alone grows 371,000 tons a year. A school feeding program would not be a mechanism to soak up surplus though. Rather a school feeding program would be a demand anchor that stabilizes prices in the overall greater system (of the Philippine produce market).
if things go sideways, it is not good to go after the agency but it is more prudent to go after the person responsible, sack him, fire him, take him to court, stripped him of authority, etc. example is our DA, dept of agri secretary tiu laurel is facing charges for, I dont know, alleged conflict of interests and potential corruption over the 395millions worth of imported rice from vietnam. tiu laurel also chaired the importing company and hold 79 percent of the company’s controlling stake.
thanks for always bringing systems level thinking
As Joey mentioned the Makan Bergizi Gratis (the Indonesian school feeding program which did have some issues) I asked Claude to compare what is in this article with the MBG and got this:
Agree. The school feeding program and the Sagip Saka acts are the building blocks, they just need another level to assemble the the blocks. Little by little the one I used was chipping at the problem. This is nation building one block at a time. One wall at a time, one house at a time.
yes, and probably the best way to go. As the example of MBG in the apparently somewhat more efficient Republik Indonesia shows, a too ambitious rollout has many points of failure. Better to scale up gradually.