The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) will launch its 2nd urban vegetable farming project dubbed as “Buhay sa Gulay” project, on January 8, 2021, as it donates a seven (7) hectare land in Bagong Silangan, Quezon City to promote the significance of farming in urban areas and help marginalized urban barangays reduce poverty, eradicate hunger and contribute to food security.
DAR Secretary Brother John Castriciones said the urban farming project is not a dole-out but a self-help start-up livelihood project where concerned government agencies and organizations will converge, share resources, and offer an opportunity to enable the urban farmers to produce and eat fresh healthy vegetables and provide them with additional source of income.
The DAR and Department of Agriculture link arms with the Local Government Unit of Quezon City, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, Bread Society International, Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Organizations (ARBOs) of DAR and residents of Barangay Bagong Silangan to developed the 7-hectare idle land into a vegetable production hub of Quezon City.
Brother John said the DAR estimated that an annual vegetable production per hectare would produce 765 metric tons of vegetables broken into: 29.7 MT eggplants; 0.7 MT Sitao; 350 MT Pechay; 280 MT Mustasa; 25 MT Squash; 80 Okra; and 20 MT Ampalaya.
“This project is a huge help for our Quezon city residents to provide them with alternative source of income and source of affordable food supply,” Brother John said.
For this project to become succesful, the DAR chief explained that the urban residents would receive support from the government for their agricultural needs such as machineries, tools, and farm inputs. The technical know-how would be provided by farmer-scientists and agrarian reform beneficiaries of the DAR-Calabarzon.
Brother John divulged that this 2nd launching of urban vegetable farming is a precedent to the success of Buhay sa Gulay project in St. John Bosco Parish in Tondo, Manila.
“We launched the first “Buhay sa Gulay” last November 22 last year and in just over a month, we successfully harvested spinach, snow cabbage, kangkong, mustard among other vegetables on January 3, of this year,” Castriciones said.
Brother John also added that after the launching in Quezon City, the next location for this project would be in Caloocan City.
“We are positive that other cities in Metro Manila would replicate this project because this is a strategic solution to address issues of food production and sufficiency, and livelihood needs of Filipinos the urban communities,” DAR Secretary said. (Public Assistance and Media Relations Service, Department of Agrarian Reform)
