In a rural province of the Philippines, local farmers and the food bank team up to nourish the next generation.
By Micaela Wu | Updated May 28, 2026
The province of Nueva Vizcaya is about seven hours from metro Manila. The drive is picturesque — with sprawling farmland, rolling hills and spectacular backdrops at every turn thanks to the region’s three large mountain ranges. The fertile landscape has earned the province its nickname: “Citrus Capital of the Philippines.” It is here that Moises Amokla’s family has been farming for more than 50 years.
Moises has a gentle, calm demeanor. As he walks row after row cucumber plants, checking each individual plant with care, he shares stories of generations of his family cultivating this land and the legacy he hopes to leave behind. “We have been farming for 50 years,” he says, “so my grandchildren are now eating the fruits of my labor. I am happy.”
This desire to protect and care for the next generation is evident throughout Nueva Vizcaya. And yet, about 3 in 10 children and across the Philippines are undernourished, and approximately 95 children die every day due to malnutrition, according to research by UNICEF. So, when a research study found that about half the excess produce at Nueva Vizcaya’s trading post — one of the country’s largest — was going to waste, the local food bank saw an opportunity.
The trading post, known as Nueva Vizcaya Agricultural Terminal (NVAT), is a public-private joint venture where thousands of farmers like Moises go daily to sell the produce that supplies much of the mainland’s major markets.
Inside the gates of the terminal, food is in abundance. From sunrise to well past sundown, workers unload vehicle after vehicle full of cabbages, crates of cauliflower and huge sacks full of gourds, ginger and long beans, perfectly arranged. But a significant amount of the produce goes unsold, never making it to retail markets or people’s plates. Often fruits and vegetables can’t be sold due to cosmetic imperfections, like not being the right size or color, or insect bites or blemishes accrued during handling. Other times, even if the produce looks perfect, there is no guarantee it will be purchased by a buyer. If everyone is trying to sell tomatoes, for example, a farmer might struggle to sell their large supply. Additionally, the price that buyers offer for those tomatoes will be low, so it might not even be worth it for farmers to pay for transportation to the market in the first place.
Rodolfo Eugenio Valdez has been working at NVAT since 2010 as a trader and grows crops on the side. When asked how often he’s had to throw away produce in the past, he replies in Ilocano, the local dialect, “When business is slow, some of it.” Gesturing to the sacks of chayote, cabbage and cauliflower in his tricycle, he adds, “Because when prices are cheap and there’s oversupply, we can hardly sell.”
There’s also a lot of hidden food loss that occurs at the farm before it gets to places like NVAT. Melania Runas, a 61-year-old farmer who has been selling at NVAT for decades, says that about 30 percent of her crops do not make it to the agricultural terminal, citing reasons like pest and plant disease, weather impacts or overripening.
Tucked inside the back corner of the labyrinth of the agricultural terminal, GFN member Rise Against Hunger Philippines has piloted a solution to recover the thousands of pounds of surplus food that may go to waste from farmers like Moises, Rodolfo and Melania. In contrast to the rows of incongruous stalls and pathways of the terminal, the food bank — a newly built warehouse with food items and essential supplies arranged neatly atop pristine shelves — turns the heads of curious agricultural workers who zoom by on their motorbikes. It is here that, at any odd hour of the day, farmers with surplus produce can arrive and trade their goods for those of the food bank.
Lauris Anudon manages the food bank at NVAT, overseeing the bartering and trading with farmers. When a farmer arrives, Lauris inspects the products, and they agree on a value, in pesos per kilogram, usually after a little haggling. After the produce is weighed and a final peso value is determined, the farmer can select from a variety of products — including bags of rice, oil, tinned fish, instant coffee, noodles and personal care products — that add up to the value of the produce they donated. Farmers walk away with products they would otherwise have to go out and purchase, and then the food bank is well stocked with all kinds of fresh produce to distribute to the local schoolchildren and other community members who need it.
In addition to maintaining the inventory at the warehouse, facilitating transactions with farmers and conducting outreach about this program to others at NVAT, Lauris is also responsible for getting the produce that the food bank receives to people who could benefit, particularly school-aged children. In the first 8 months of the program, he had already developed partnerships with 10 nearby elementary schools around Nueva Vizcaya. Lauris organizes weekly food distributions using the produce from the NVAT food bank, serving students from kindergarten to third grade, where class sizes can be up to three hundred.
“The bartered vegetables are given to the schools to support their school feeding programs,” Lauris explains. “In a way, it’s also an opportunity for the farmers to contribute to [community] development work. They are able to help feed schoolchildren who need to have better food so that they don’t go to school hungry.”
“A sense of fulfillment that I get from this job is, we know that our schoolchildren are eating better food,” says Lauris, reflecting on all the logistics, coordination and partnerships needed to make this work happen. “And I feel happy because we’re helping the farmers.”
For Rise Against Hunger Philippines, addressing child hunger is one of their highest organizational priorities. So much of the food bank’s programming is focused on providing hot meals to schoolchildren and supporting organizations that run school feeding programs. School feeding programs not only support healthy growth and development at a critical period of life, but they can enhance academic performance, improve attendance and incentivize children to stay in school long-term.
“We work with the district Department of Education,” says Jomar Fleras, founder and executive director of Rise Against Hunger Philippines. “We ask them to identify 10 schools with the highest cases of malnutrition. And out of these 10 schools, an average of about 5,000 children are given vegetables on a regular basis. The children take these vegetables home to be shared to the rest of the family. So, in effect, we’re able to reach about 20,000 people.” RAHP also employs a staff nutritionist and food safety officer who work together to monitor the food being distributed to ensure the children receive a healthy balance of fruits and vegetables as well as shelf stable items like canned goods, grains and milk.
“A whole community is being helped through this program,” Jomar continues, looking off in the distance toward the food bank and Lauris receiving another exchange of fresh vegetables from a farmer. “Many of these school kids walk for like an hour, two hours to get to school,” says Jomar. “The public schools are free. But then a lot of these kids go to school on a hungry stomach. Can you just imagine how difficult it is to learn anything when you’re trying to concentrate and listen to the teachers on a hungry stomach?”
Jomar explains that the ultimate goal of this agricultural recovery program is reach both the thousands of farmers currently trading at NVAT as well as the community’s school children — reducing food waste and post-harvest losses while, in turn, donating those recovered vegetables to school programs where children are provided with fresh vegetables to bring home. Jomar adds that, although NVAT is the largest trading post in in the country, there are several trading posts around Luzon and other parts of the Philippines.
“I’m sure there’s a lot of food that can be recovered there. What we hope to do is to create a model that can be scaled up and replicated in these various trading posts.”
Back on Moises’s farm, one of his grandsons comes by the farm after school. The boy, who attends a nearby elementary school, has a sweet face and a gentle smile, like his grandfather. He has come to show his grandfather the large bag of fruits and vegetables he brought home from his school’s feeding program. “If you cook it, I will eat it,” the boy says. Moises smiles broadly as he takes the bag and heads toward the kitchen with his grandson eagerly trailing behind.
“Sempre digo às pessoas que é preciso uma aldeia para alimentar uma criança. E esta é a aldeia que criamos aqui em Nueva Vizcaya.”
