Senator Imee Marcos on Wednesday said food sufficiency in the country is not the problem but rather the food mobilization, citing huge surpluses of harvested vegetables amounted to more than 700,000 metric tons.

"The problem is not food sufficiency but food mobilization. Farmer-buyer linkages, transport access to deliver farm produce to local trading centers and the bigger cities, and storage facilities to prevent spoilage remain inadequate," Imee said.

The government, she said, could explore the possibility of tapping private sectors to make systematic and sustainable in the long term to mitigate wastage.

"The KADIWA program can only do so much, due to its limited budget," she added.

Citing the Department of Agriculture's Supply and Demand Outlook, she said the shortages of vegetables in the Western, Eastern and Central Visayas regions could have been covered by surpluses from Luzon and Northern Mindanao if there is an efficient supply chain in place.

The supply of highland vegetables in the Western, Eastern, and Central Visayas regions was short by 55,093 MT, while a deficit of 105,574 MT of lowland vegetables was also recorded in the first two regions, with only the Central Visayas managing a yield above its sufficiency level.

"The DA's challenge lies in greater food mobilization. Beyond minimizing food wastage, jobs in farming will also be saved and new ones created in transport and delivery, possibly even in export," she added.

She questioned the whereabouts of the huge surpluses of harvested vegetables which have, so far, amounted to more than 700,000 MT.

Imee said despite the bountiful harvests recorded, the destinations and end-use of excess vegetables remain unclear.

"This points to an unknown degree of food wastage and lost income for farmers and savings for consumers. The scenes of vegetables dumped by the roadside or left to rot unsold in trading centers are likely underreported," she said.

Citing the DA's statistical report, Imee said harvests of highland vegetables like cabbage, carrots, white potatoes, white beans (habichuelas), and Chinese cabbage in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Cagayan Valley Region, and Northern Mindanao helped push up total national supply to 1,064,780 MT, which resulted in a surplus of 642,500 MT or a "sufficiency level" of 252 percent.