Agency tapped to buy squash to aid farmers

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte has tapped the Department of Agriculture for the purchase of 5.5 tons of squash from Nueva Vizcaya farmers for the distribution to the affected families in the special concerned lockdown areas.

She said included in the distributed food packs are 5.5 tons of squash for the special concern lockdown areas with high COVID-19 cases.

The vegetables were acquired by the city through the assistance of DA’s Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Service.

“We included squash in the food packs to provide them with nutritious food on their table,” Belmonte said.

The city mayor is the head of the Task Force on Food Security.

Apart from providing nutritious food, the city’s #GrowQC food security initiative looks into ways to improve the food system or the flow of food to the city.

The #GrowQC program is committed to assist and support both local provincial and urban farmers by buying their produce and linking them to the city’s feeding programs.

According to Food Security Task Force co-chairman and Sustainable Development Affairs Unit chief Emmanuel Hugh Velasco, soon the GrowQC mobile kitchen will be serving hot meals in the most vulnerable and in need members of the city and where ingredients of these hot meals are to be sourced from our QC community farms.

The “Grow QC: Kasama ka sa Pag-unlad sa Pagkain, Kabuhayan, at Kalusugan food security initiative” empowers Qcitizens in addressing the food, employment and health challenges brought about by the pandemic.