‘Vegetable garden city’ eyed in Tondo

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) is set to convert a one-and-a-half-hectare idle lot in Tondo, Manila into a “vegetable garden city” for the benefit of residents in surrounding villages.

DAR Secretary John Castriciones said the lot is located at St. John Bosco Parish Church and its parish priest, Fr. Gaudencio Carandang, has given his approval for the project.

“The DAR will provide the farm inputs – seeds, seedling trays, garden tools, fertilizer and pesticide,” Castriciones said, adding that barangay officials have volunteered to tend the garden.

He added that the harvested vegetables would be distributed among the participating barangays’ residents.

Castriciones said he raised the idea after the idle lot caught his eye as he distributed food packs to poor families in Tondo.

The food packs consisted of cabbage and round radish sold at a bargain by a farmers’ group in Nueva Vizcaya, whose harvest was unsold and rotting.

“Instead of going to waste, we might as well, make use of these vegetable surplus to feed the hungry,” Castriciones said during the food distribution program.