BAGUIO CITY – The local government is grateful to the officials of the Cordillera office of the Department of Agriculture (DA-CAR) for its unrelenting and uncompromising support to the aggressive promotion of the agriculture sector in the city to help achieve the government’s overall objective of food self-sufficiency not only in the rural areas but also in the urban centers in the country.
Councilor Leandro B. Yangot, Jr., chairman of the City Council Committee on Market, Trade, Commerce and Agriculture, said that organic agriculture and urban gardening practitioners in the different barangays of the city have been receiving enormous technical and financial support from the DA-CAR over the past several years that allowed the substantial growth and development of the local agriculture sector beneficial to the members of their families.
He pointed out that the recent commitment made by DA-CAR regional director Dr. Cameron Odsey on the agency’s continuing support to the city’s agriculture sector should serve as an inspiration for residents to embrace urban gardening to maximize the utilization of the limited spaces within their homes for the production of fruits and vegetables that will be consumed by their families purposely for the realization of food self-sufficiency.
“We are lucky that the present administration is giving emphasis in supporting the growth of the agriculture sector in urban centers like Baguio city. We need to empower our constituents to embrace urban gardening as part of the way of life in a thickly populated city for us to be able to produce part of our daily food requirements,” Yangot stressed.
The local legislator disclosed that the recent assistance provided by DA-CAR to hundreds of farmers from the different barangays in the city is just the start of more technical assistance that will be provided by the agriculture department to allow organic agriculture to thrive in an urban setting where limited spaces will be transformed into beautiful attractions.
According to him, by being involved in urban gardening and organic agriculture, residents will have a chance to produce their daily food requirements and earn additional income once they will be able to sell their produce to their neighbors or interested buyers from the different markets, thus, the enormous support being infused by concerned government agencies and the local government to organic agriculture for the realization of food self-sufficiency.
Councilor Yangot asserted that numerous residents from the city’s barangays have committed to actively participate in the production of fruits and vegetables within their limited spaces for them to be part of the local organic agriculture practitioners to help in providing added attractions in the different barangays by making available vertical gardens worthy of appreciation not only by the residents but also the visitors who frequent the city for them to spend a vacation.
Odsey informed local agriculture stakeholders in the city that DA-CAR will include them in the provision of whatever technical assistance that will be provided by the agency in the coming years to help in improving the growth and development of the sector in an urban setting considering that the said sector has been left behind in the previous years that paved the way for the limited individuals involved in the production of organically grown crops in the homes of people.
By Dexter A. See
Banner photo by Bong Cayabyab
