Experts encourage urban farming

EXPERTS from the agriculture sector are pushing urban and peri-urban agriculture to help address food security and sustainability challenges.

During the Pandesal Forum held at Kamuning Bakery Café in Quezon City on Monday, the experts urged Filipinos to go into outdoor and indoor farming, vertical or multilevel farming, and peri-urban agriculture where vegetables are planted in areas that are peripheral or near urban centers.

«It's a way of sustainable living,» Glenn Panganiban, director of the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Plant Industry, said during the forum.

Panganiban emphasized the importance of adopting and supporting urban farming to ensure food sustainability, emphasizing this will not displace crop production in the rural areas.

«Urban and peri-urban agriculture do not replace rural production, but rather complements it. It is a way of sustainable living because we produce food in our cities and in our own communities,» Panganiban said.

University of Arizona professor Joel Cuello said that urban and peri-urban farming can be done open-air or indoor, and highlighted the importance of vertical and indoor farming in the Philippines.

«For urban agriculture to really prosper, we need to incorporate some forms of vertical farming or indoor farming, so that it will be climate resilient,» Cuello added.

Under a vertical farming set up, crops are cultivated using vertically stacked layers. The more advanced vertical farming systems use hydroponics to irrigate crops.

Cecilio Pedro, president of the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc., said that businessmen can invest in agriculture, but there is a need for the government, the academe and private sector to cooperate.

«We, the people involved in business, are willing to invest as long as we're going to see that it's going to be profitable in the future so that we can sustain the operation. It is a very tough job, and we need everyone's help,» Pedro said.

For William Dar, senior adviser of Go Negosyo's Kapatid Angat Lahat Agriculture Program and The Manila Times columnist, farmers must be given access to technologies and organized into cooperatives so they can be part of the value