MANILA, Philippines -- Josephine de Guzman lives beside an estero or creek in the heart of Manila, surrounded by concrete sidewalks and dilapidated buildings, but she looks forward to waking up each day to the smell of flowers and the sound of chirping birds.
Josephine's community is a unique little pocket of greenery in the midst of a congested urban jungle. "Masarap, pag gising mo, makikita mo agad yung halaman mo," she said (It feels good that when you wake up you’re able to see your plants right away).
A few years ago, an environmental group helped Josephine and her neighbors convert a tiny patch of abandoned land in their community into a thriving garden that grows vegetables, flowers and herbs. Jospehine's neighbor, Remy Patricio, said she hasn’t bought vegetables from the wet market for years because their garden grows all the vegetables her family needs, like eggplants, onions, string beans, cucumbers and sweet potatoes.
Remy said they’re lucky since vegetable prices in Manila are highly volatile. Prices of vegetables can spike up or go down almost daily. For instance, when a typhoon would hit the northern part of Luzon where most crops are grown, prices of vegetables can double, oftentimes becoming more expensive than chicken or fish.
Because of communities like Josephine’s and Remy’s, the Philippines’ Department of Agriculture (DA) saw an opportunity in urban agriculture as a way to solve the problems of malnutrition and lack of food among many city dwellers.
“Urban agriculture is essentially farming in the city,” explained Redelliza Gruezo, field officer of the country’s Agriculture Department. The DA wants to integrate farming into the daily activities of residents in urban areas. “So people in the city will not only be consumers but also producers,” Gruezo said.
Hunger and even severe hunger among Filipinos, especially those squatting in urban areas, still persist. A June 2015 survey from the Social Weather Stations estimated that 2.8 million Filipino families have experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months.
“Our population is growing and we believe that urban agriculture can truly contribute to food security, for our people,” Gruezo said.
Growing plants without soilAfter decades of working abroad, Rely Baluyot decided to come home and stay for good. He wanted to replicate here the urban farms he saw in his travels to the US and Japan. But there was one drawback. He had limited land space in the city and therefore not enough soil for planting - until he discovered hydroponics, a method of growing plants without soil.
Instead of soil, Rely uses a mixture of cement and coco dust with water. This mixture will serve as the base where seeds will germinate so plants can grow.
“Kahit wala kang lupa, pwede, kahit puro semento ang lugar mo pwede ka mag tanim,” Rely said (Even if you don’t have land, even if you’re surrounded by concrete, you can plant.)
The key with the hydroponics method is to constantly moisten plants with water that's been fortified with nutrients like nitrate, potassium and phosphate. Rely’s hydroponics facility is designed in such a way that allows for the automatic watering of plants and can even filter and reuse water so that it operates with 80% less water than when planting with soil.
Rely was so successful in using the hydroponics method that today, he’s not only able to grow vegetables for his family to eat but also have extra produce to sell. A particularly good harvest of his lettuce, for instance, can yield up to 900 kilos of the vegetable per week.
The Department of Agriculture is aware of the many challenges in solving the problem of hunger in the country. The DA is not without its share of controversies especially with regards to the use of its public funds.
Then there are the adverse effects of climate change like droughts and flooding that greatly diminishes crop yields.
There’s also the pressure on the government to commit to the new development agenda, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that will be put forward for adoption by Heads of States at the United Nations (UN) Summit in September this year.
One of the goals aims to end hunger by 2030. A feat that, the DA admits, can only be achieved with political will and strong partnerships with stakeholders.
Urban agriculture, according to Gruezo, is one of the crucial components of the government’s sustainable agriculture program.
Since 2011, the Department of Agriculture has helped establish urban farms in 164 communities in Metro Manila, the country’s densest megacity with over 16 million inhabitants. They have also trained 22,266 households in basic vegetable production.
While the agriculture sector grapples with its many challenges, success stories such as Josephine’s community and Rely’s garden also abound, which are perhaps enough reasons to believe that a food secure future for the Philippines is all too attainable.
source: www.abs-cbnnews.com
