Urban agricultural program gets more support

MANILA, Philippines — More institutions have joined the call of the government to venture into urban agriculture to contribute in ensuring sustainable food supply in the country.

The Department of Agriculture recently inked a memorandum of agreement with Dole Asia Co. Ltd. and Taha M. Basman Memorial Islamic Foundation for the implementation of DA’s flagship urban agriculture program.

The program aims to stabilize the supply of food, alleviate poverty, foster social integration, protect the environment through eco-friendly methods and innovate gardening methods.

Dole Asia is a subsidiary of Dole Asia Holdings Pte. Ltd., one of the region’s largest producers and marketers of high-quality fresh fruits and packaged fruit and healthy snacks.

Taha Foundation, on the other hand, caters to the educational requirements of children and adults displaced by the armed conflict in Mindanao. It offers livelihood, capacity-building, and other activities in Muslim-majority communities in various parts of the country.

“We need to maximize the opportunity to produce our own food individually and collectively as we are still in the middle of this pandemic,” Agriculture Secretary William Dar said.

He said the private sector’s participation would  help bring the project into success as the DA and the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) could not do the work alone.

“With all our collective efforts under the urban agriculture initiative, we will be able to produce more food that is available, affordable and nutritious for the families,” Dar said.

Under the agreement, the DA-BPI will provide initial agriculture inputs, such as vegetable seeds, plastic sheets, nets for the greenhouse and knapsack sprayer.

The assistance also includes gardening modules and technical assistance from the BPI to ensure the maintenance and sustenance of the community garden.

BPI has already conducted a site visit for Dole in their Makati office and is committed to replicate it in their other branches.
Dole has assured the DA that it is strengthening partnership with DA and BPI  toward the sustainable growth and expansion of the program.

For its part, Taha Foundation noted that as early as May, BPI has initiated the distribution of vegetable seeds that were planted in school gardens.