Food Security

In a country where the great majority are rice eaters, it is easy to forget that there are those among us whose staple is other than rice. In various regions, corn or rootcrops are the predominant food in the daily diets of the local people. And in the Cordillera, it is camote which is king where neither cold nor terrain allows for the rice plant to grow. For eight months of the year, camote provides the main sustenance of certain communities such as in Asipulo, Ifugao, and rice is a mere substitute. The cultivation of camote on the Cordillera’s mountain slopes is said to presage rice farming in mountain terraces