By Alice Nicart

Borongan City (10 July) -- In his move to identify food security problems and potentials as well as gather proposed interventions from participants, Governor Ben Evardone initiated the holding of the Provincial Food Summit and Workshop today at the Capitol lobby.

In his opening statement for the two-day workshop, Evardone thanked the participating agencies for the assistance they extended to the program as he likewise urged the participants to give inputs on how the province can best increase its agricultural production, vis-à-vis rice which has been the current problem nationwide. He also reminded the audience to plant in order to mitigate the impact, should a problem in food supply crop up.

"We must cultivate a culture of food production," he stressed, "and the problem on irrigation particularly, must now be discussed and addressed to. Whatever result in this summit and workshop shall be submitted to Malacanang for inclusion in the President's State of the Nation Address (SONA) which she will deliver by the end of this month," he added.

But the words of Department of Agriculture Director, Leo Caneda had somehow appeased the worried minds of the participants. He said that Eastern Samar actually is far better than other Samar provinces in terms of food sufficiency posting at 55%. But since it is the national goal to increase food production by 2010, the province must not sit on its laurels.