A COMMON sight in modest households in Cagayan de Oro City, are vegetables hanging from windows, plants in pots or in little spaces of residents’ homes. These vegetables are a pot of gold to its growers.
Villages One to 40 and Consolacion are few of the villages in the city that are practicing Urban Container Household Gardening project.
This city project recently bagged an international award on Monday, November 21. The Urban Container Household Gardening won third place in the Food Justice category of the 2016 International Network for Urban Agriculture (INUAg) Awards.
The Food Justice category of INUAg aims to commend agricultural projects that improve food access in underserved communities.
India's Bharath Charitable Cancer Hospital & Institute, one of the first hospitals in India to farm organically on site, received the first prize followed by Poland's Hoe & Sun Community Garden which is an ongoing series of workshops and lectures on urban ecological agriculture. INUAg also gave a cash prize of $300 for the commendation.
"We are happy because aside from seeing the families that we have helped get food and learn how to plant vegetables even in their urban homes, we have been given praise from such a large agriculture body as the International Network for Urban Agriculture,” said Joseph Borja project chairman of the Urban Container Household Gardening.
In its thrust to provide a stable food source for impoverished families while saving and preserving the environment, the Cagayan de Oro City Inter-agency Committee composed of officials coming from the City Agriculture Office, Department of Education (DepEd), the City Local Environment and Natural Resources Office (Clenro), City Health Office (CHO) and the City Social Welfare and Development launched the agricultural project, Urban Container Household Gardening. This program centers on the theme: “Gulay ay paramihin upang ang benepisyo ay bumalik sa atin”.
"While Cagayan de Oro City is not really impoverished, but there are still families who are below the poverty line. That is why there is a need to initiate projects like these so that we can assure that there is always food in the table," said Borja.
Since the project's launching in 2014, Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) beneficiaries in the city from Village 1 to 40 and Consolacion Village have been given a number of trainings on gardening and solid waste recycling. These families were then given the challenge to plant any variety of vegetables in their backyard using recycled materials. Presently, Borja said that there are about 200 families that are taking part in the program.
This agricultural project is aimed to combat the rising problem of malnutrition, poverty, and high drop-out rates among school-age children in the city. Impoverished families in at-risk communities are taught to feed themselves by planting their own vegetables with their own, sometimes limited, space.
Aside from food supply, these families are also taught to plant their vegetables in any recyclable material like old cans, water bottles, garbage bags, and even shoes. In its three years of implementation, the City Government has been providing for the seeds and the garden tools that these urban farmers use in their own urban gardens.
However, the team from the City Agriculture Office of the City Inter-agency Committee responsible for the project has been making regular inspections to make sure that the participants are maintaining their urban gardens.
"The main objective of this project is to first tackle food security, second disseminate waste management advice, and third advocate for a green environment. Now that the program has been nicely installed in the community some children before who go to school with an empty stomach will never go hungry again because their families have been introduced to this kind of gardening," Borja added.
Dyan Eloisa Eston, a resident of Barangay 17, is one of the beneficiaries of the Urban Container Household Gardening project. With five children, she admits that finding food among other important expenses in their family is really hard at times. However, with the knowledge that she got from the training of the City Agriculture Office for the Container Household Garden, she has now more options on how she can find food for her family.
"I really felt this project helped me especially because we do not earn much. Instead of spending money on food I can now spend it for my children's school needs or for other necessities here in our house. Aside from that, I can be sure that it is safe because we planted these vegetables ourselves," she said.
By 2017, Borja said the inter-agency committee plans of expanding the project while reaching out to poor families in the densely populated areas in the city like Barangay Carmen. He said the cash prize from INUAg would also help in the project expansion.
“We hope that with more funding from the government and with more support from the Kagay.anons, we can spread this practice to the whole city and even the Phillipines," Borja said.