Senator Cynthia Villar called on the government to support Filipino farmers to have access to safe and nutritious food.
This move, she said, will encourage them to strive harder to help the country attain food security.
“We should also help rural communities access better services from the government to make them stay there to feed us all,” Villar, the chairperson of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said.
Villar, a Guest Speaker at the Rotary Club of Makati event held at Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City, spoke about the country’s Food Security and Green Revolution.
According to Villar, these topics are relevant and timely as we continue to confront several challenges in the agricultural sector.
However, she assures that their commitment to lift and protect the Philippine agriculture sector will always remain unaltered.
She recalled that during the Marcos regime in 1973, “Green Revolution” was a popular program primarily geared toward rice sufficiency.
Recently, the Department of Agriculture under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. launched a new version of Green Revolution seeking to improve the nutrition of Filipinos by increasing production and supply of fresh fruits and vegetables in the urban and rural areas.
It aims to turn communities into patches of green edible landscapes through the establishment of vegetable gardens.
“I have also been leading the campaign on vegetable gardening by distributing seeds and organic fertilizers while enticing people to grow their own food thru our four Villar Social Institute for Poverty Alleviation and Governance (Villar Sipag) Farm Schools, one in Las Piñas – Bacoor, for NCR and Southern Tagalog and Bicol Region; one in San Jose Del Monte City, Bulacan for Central Luzon, Cordillera Region and Cagayan Valley; one in San Miguel, Iloilo for Visayas and Davao City for Mindanao,” said Villar.
“I give seeds and organic fertilizer from kitchen and garden wastes produced by our 87 composting facilities in Las Piñas and 50 composting facilities in different Camella Communities nationwide,” added Villar.
Furthermore, the senator said she worked towards sharing knowledge, addressing issues and exploring opportunities to achieve sustainable agriculture and inclusive growth through the establishment of farm schools.
In 2016, Republic Act No. 10816 or the Farm Tourism Development Act which she authored and sponsOred was passed into law.This made possible the establishment of farm tourism sites and farm schools, now numbers to 2,805 in the country.