Community gardens can sustain neighborhood and complement communtiy pantries, according to Senator Cynthia Villar.
The chairperson of the Senate Agriculture and Food committee said gardens are a more sustainable and cost-efficient way of providing daily supply of food or substance to community members, especially in poor neighborhoods.
“They only need vegetable seeds, seedlings of fruit-bearing trees, organic fertilizers and a small parcel of lot from a backyard or open spaces of subdivisions in a public place which some LGUs can even allocate for them,” Villar said.
The senator has been encouraging the public to engage in urban farming or vegetable gardening.
She has been distributing vegetable seeds and organic fertilizers, initially in her home city of Las Pinas, and now all over the country.
Through Villar SIPAG, the Nacionalista senator also gives for free organic fertilizer to gardeners and farmers.
The fertilizers were made from kitchen and garden wastes collected from Las Pinas household and brought to composting facilities in the city.
Because of the significant role of community gardens especially during this pandemic, Villar renewed her call for people to grow their own food in their own backyard or in a community garden.
These vegetables grown in the comfort of their homes, can also complement the now popular community pantries which sprouted across the country.
`Villar also authored and filed Senate Bill No. 141, which sought to institutionalize urban agriculture in the country to meet food sufficiency targets and address hunger.