Food and Agriculture - a self-administered test

Dr Abe V Rotor

Self-Administered Test on Food Supply Situation (True or False)

DZRB 738 KHz AM 8 to 9 pm Mon to Friday

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly Tenorio

Marine fish such as the tanggigi are declining. Ambulant vendors, Lagro QC

1.The Good Life is taking its toll in terms of ailments and diseases related to too much eating.  It has bred obesity now a growing global concern. Sixty percent of Americans are reportedly overweight. Asians are coming up next. T


2. Actually there is enough food for the whole world.  It is a question of inequality of distribution. T

3. Aquaculture is man’s ultimate frontier of production, because the conventional production areas have already reached their limit. T

4. Chemical pesticides and fertilizers has improved productivity of farmlands as well as enhanced sustainable production. (F)

5. Lowland ricefields during the monsoon season make a contiguous lake that is a an abode to many edible species of freshwater fish, crustaceans, mollusk and amphibians. T

6. Palay-isdahan means converting spent fishponds to rice production since rice is an aquatic plant. T

7. Rice can be grown commercially in the highlands, saline areas, hillsides, uplands, acidic and alkaline soils. (F)

8. Decrease in food production is also a result of increasing price of fuel, so that when price of food goes up, increase in fuel follows. T

9. Tragedy of the Commons means that common people who do not wake up to the realities of modern living will be left behind by progress. (F)

10. The sea is limitless in resources considering that more than 70% of the earth’s surface is covered with water. (F)

11.  For this matter (referring to the previous statement), the world’s population can safely increase further without fear of shortage in food and other needs.  It is only a matter of improving technology and direct it to this purpose.(F)

12. To prevent crust, shut off the stove for a minute after it  has reach boiling point – then turn on the heat until the rice is well cooked. T

13. Vitamins and minerals are concentrated in the vegetable, not in its rind or skin. Thus you have to peel kalabasa, pipino, talong, patola and the like. (F)

14. Food management at home was a subject required in the elementary a generation ago which was then called Home Economics. T 

15. Converting mangrove swamps into fishponds is a solution to food crisis because fishponds produce more food that what the mangrove swamps contribute to the natural supply of food.  (F)   

16. The sea is nearly 4 km deep, and up to 12 km at its deepest – which means that fishing has barely scratched the surface of the sea, thus there is no foreseen danger of depletion of marine resources. (F)

17. Seaweed farming is most popular in these places in the Philippoines: Danahon Reef  (between Cebu and Bohol), Zamboanga and Tawi-tawi. T

18. Our country exports millions of dollars worth of Caulerpa which is the source of carageenan used as food conditioning like in ice cream products.   

19. The most popular seaweed sold in Metro Manila is nori, which is used in making Japanese maki. This seaweed is commercially grown in the Philippines. (F)

20. You save on food if you have no pets at home.  There is a policy of China, even to the present, to limit the number of pets in order to save food on this premise. T

21. GM rice or golden rice contains yellow pigment of daffodils which is rich in Vit A.   Vit A may be needed by the body but an overdose of it may be deleterious to health such as allergy. This is the first case of “biopharming” – implanting drugs and medicine in food plants to act as food and medicine at the same time.  T   

22. Food is getting expensive because the production base (productivity potential) is declining. Other than low production, to rehabilitate the farm is now a major input in production.  In short, rehabilitation is subsidized by the consumer.  T

23. Revolutions start with hungry stomach as history can attest.  French Revolution, Russian, Chinese, to mention some. These support Marxist philosophy of justifying socialism over aristocracy and capitalism. T

24. What economists insist is that the road to good life is economic development, and any country that remains underdeveloped will never have a taste of it. 

25. There is limit to growth; it cannot be a perfect progression.  Somehow the curve becomes an inverted C – which means that the factors of growths become the antithesis of growth itself.  T  

TRIVIA: Name some “Foods of the Gods” in olden days that commoners were forbidden to eat these. 

• Nori (red seaweed, Porphyra)
• Mead (honey wine)

NOTE: Answers will be posted in a week's time.