Philippines’ Quezon City Government Bats for Urban Gardening

Quezon City Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte.

Joy in Urban Farming

By Chitto A. Chavez
Manilla Bulletin Publishing
November 2, 2010

MANILA, Philippines – In a bid to address the malnutrition woes among schoolchildren, the Quezon City (QC) government is aggressively promoting urban farming and gardening in the city’s public schools.

According to Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista, the school-based urban farming project is being pushed to minimize if not totally eradicate child hunger among public schoolchildren.

Medical experts in the past have correlated malnutrition as one of the major causes on the child’s sub-par academic performance level in school. This prompted the city government to come up with measures to reduce if not altogether resolve the problem of malnutrition.

The project encourages organic farming and gardening to ensure a supply of nutritious and chemical free-vegetables for the schools’ soup kitchen program. It, also, aims to create a healthy environment for schoolchildren.

Organic farming in public schools goes along side with the Quezon City government’s project of urban backyard gardening designed to create additional livelihood opportunities to its lesser privilege residents.

It would be recalled that the Quezon City government has partnered with the Department of Agriculture (DA) in developing an urban backyard gardening program. Already, the DA has provided the office of Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte with boxes of assorted vegetable seeds for distribution to different QC barangays. Program beneficiaries also include retirees, senior citizens, students and out-of-school youth.

Quezon City Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte, in a speech during the launching of the “Joy in Urban Farming” project in public schools underscored the importance of urban gardening in providing food security to city residents, especially among the poor.

Belmonte has launched coordinative efforts with public, private and non-governmental institutions for the proper marketing and sale of agricultural products that will be harvested by the program beneficiaries.

There is a continuing effort from the Quezon City government to encourage more urban poor families to engage in vegetable production.

The program has also tapped the city’s 142 barangays in popularizing backyard farming, especially in neighborhood with big vacant spaces.

Aside from the Department of Agriculture, program partners also include the Department of Science and Technology, Earthworm Vermi Composting Technology, Gawad/Green Kalinga and the Quezon City Environmental Protection and Waste Management Department headed by Frederika Rentoy.

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