DA sold on urban community gardens

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) has inked an agreement with the municipality of Rosario, Cavite for the establishment of community gardens.

The project, which forms part of the DA’s Urban Agriculture (UA) and Plant Plant Plant Programs, aims to establish vegetable production areas in pockets of available lands and to diversify the source of livelihood of people in urban communities.

Under the partnership, communal gardens will be established in the municipality of Rosario.

Aside from ensuring food accessibility and availability, the project also highlighted the role of women in the community as it involves the wives of fishermen.

“As initial assistance, containerized gardening and hydroponics set-up were provided and training will also be conducted to capacitate the beneficiaries,”the DA said.

UA national director and concurrent assistant director of the Bureau of Plant Industry Gerald Glenn Panganiban said the program is a collaborative partnership between the DA and LGUs.

“We can’t do it alone. We hope you’ll continue to support us,” Panganiban said.

For her part, Agriculture Undersecretary Evelyn Laviña said the pandemic is an eye-opener as it helped the department to prioritize and identify appropriate interventions.

During the signing of the memorandum of agreement, almost P700,000 agri and fishery interventions from the DA-Regional Field Office IVA and DA-Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources were awarded to representatives of more than 200 beneficiaries to start up five target sites.

These include multi-tiller, grass cutter, vermicast, blue plastic drums, seedling trays, garden tools, plastic mulch, calamansi trees, papaya seedlings, assorted vegetable seeds, seedling bags, bottom set fillet sets, and materials to construct four fiberglass bancas.

Aside from the interventions given to the municipality of Rosario, the department will also link their products to export markets through the DA-Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Service.

In early May, the DA had already established 36 community gardens in urban areas in the country through its urban agriculture program.

The DA is eyeing to develop 85 more community gardens under the program.

“What we want to achieve under the Urban Agriculture program is that our countrymen can plant in their backyards so that they will have access to food since there are a lot of limitations during this pandemic,” Panganiban said.