EU to provide food aid to Philippines

The European Commission said on Sunday that it has approved a 6.4-million euros (9.2 million U.S. dollars) grant to support food security in five Mindanao provinces of the southern Philippines.

The grant "reaffirms the European Union (EU)'s commitment to helping the Philippines address the challenges of food security and poverty," EU's ambassador Alistair MacDonald said in a statement.

"We hope that this will help the Philippines to increase domestic food production and strengthen social safety nets, and in particular to lighten the impact of the food crisis on poor farming communities in Mindanao," MacDonald said.

The five Mindanao provinces that will benefit from the grant are Maguindanao, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur.

The project will be executed over 24 months starting next month to rebuild small scale agricultural infrastructure in poor and food-insecure areas in the highly vulnerable areas of Mindanao and to assist the government at the national level on better targeting through vulnerability analysis mapping, MacDonaldt said.