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REP. SALVADOR B. BELARO, JR.
1-Ang Edukasyon Party-list
Assistant Majority Leader
Member, Higher and Technical Education and 10 other committees

[Note: Below is a reaction to the latest Social Weather Station (SWS) self-rated poverty survey results showing that the number of Filipinos who consider themselves poor fell to a record low of 42 percent in the first quarter of 2018.]

URBAN AGRICULTURE, VERTICAL FARMS ARE SOLUTIONS TO HUNGER ESPECIALLY IN METROS OF MANILA, CEBU, DAVAO

The urban poor could be hit hard by the lack of NFA rice, especially the urban poor in Manila, Cebu, and Davao.

To help address hunger and poverty, I have proposed the Integrated Urban Agriculture and Vertical Farming Act of 2018 through House Bill 7526.

Urban dwellers can grow substitutes to rice using less land and less space than rice farms. Corn and root crops can be cultivated in urban farms. Gardens of public schools can grow these crops and meet the carbohydrate needs of their urban poor students.

Rice farming requires lots of land but integrated urban agriculture and vertical farming do not. Integrated urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing of agricultural products from animal husbandry, aquaculture, agro-forestry and horticulture in or around a metropolitan village, town and city. In vertical farming food from plants is cultivated using indoor agriculture methods of growing produce in vertically stacked layers using geoponics, hydroponics, and aeroponics.

HB 7526 proposes the institutionalization of integrated urban agriculture and vertical farming in the country in order to ensure food security, to promote livelihood, and to regenerate ecosystem functions in metropolitan areas through integrated urban agriculture and vertical farming.

Consider also that urban agriculture, according to the UNDP, “has the potential of providing much higher nutritional improvement, hunger reduction, income-generation, enterprise development, and environmental improvement to the city.”

Key implementors of urban agriculture and vertical farming would be the schools and local governments. 

LGUs can put open spaces and idle lands to good use with vertical farming and urban agriculture, while campus gardens can do more than just have ornamentals and herbs.

LGUs can also encourage or give incentives to home owners associations, neighborhood associations and community and/or people’s organizations to participate in urban farming activities within their areas.

Idle and/or abandoned government lots and buildings owned by either national and local governments or available land resources in state universities and colleges can be conducive for growing crops, raising livestock and producing food using said methods, provided that these are compliant and subject to safety standards such that of DOST and other pertinent agencies.

For universities, colleges and training centers, both public and private, integrated urban agriculture and vertical farming can be required as an advanced elective course for students pursuing Agriculture, Practical Arts, Home Economics, and other agriculture-related courses.  (END)

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