The declining interest of youth in farming and the continuing practice of monocropping by most farmers were among the challenges being faced by the city’s agricultural sector.
Participants to the recent “AgriTALK: A Collaborative Planning Workshop for Sustainable Urban Agriculture” conducted by the City Veterinary and Agriculture Office (CVAO) also identified other gaps such as the difficulty in accessing funds from the government, declining natural resources, food waste and food loss, low productivity, low participation of households in urban gardening and inadequacy of safe and affordable food.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong who broached the consultation with the agriculture stakeholders said these problems that beset the agriculture industry in the city must be addressed effectively to realize the city’s vision to transition from the traditional to smart and sustainable agriculture.
Aside from identifying the challenges, the stakeholders who came from the local government, line agencies and barangays, urban farmers and agricultural advocates and representatives from the non-government organizations, academe and youth sectors also figured out solutions and action plans to address the issues.
CVAO Head City Veterinarian Silardo Bested and Supervising Agriculturist Marcelina Tabelin said that the strategies culled from the outputs will be included in the city’s three-year Urban Agriculture Development Plan for implementation.
Tabelin said the proposed programs, projects and activities (PPAs) will be adopted for funding either by the local government units and the national government line agencies while those that are doable will be cascaded to the barangays for adoption.
The gaps and their proposed solutions are:
*Declining interest of youth in farming due to underlying current issues in the agriculture sector, thus, shortage of farmers is expected in the coming years which can lead to food shortage and higher price. Among the solutions are intensify information-education-communication (IEC) campaigns and involve youth in agriculture;
*Majority of farmers are still practicing mono-cropping and conventional ways of farming because of limited capital and knowledge on integrated farming which are detrimental to soil health and biodiversity. Solutions: Promote integrated farming and organic agriculture and capacitate farmers to transition from mono-cropping to integrated and/or organic farming;
*Smallholder farmers cannot easily access loans or funds from the government due to documentary requirements such as business plan, financial statements, etc. which prompts them to be supplied by middleman disposers. Solutions: Capacitate the farmers in preparing business plan, financial statements, and farm recording and forge partnership with cooperatives and other Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs);
*Declining natural resources because of urbanization and agricultural development makes urban agriculture’s cost of inputs high and farmers shift to other income generating activities. Solutions: Increase development sites for urban agriculture in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, promote resource-efficient farming technologies and vertical and rooftop gardening;
*Occurrence of food waste and food loss due to oversupply, improper handling/packaging, and transport issues which result in income loss and lower market price. Solutions: Improvement of logistics and distribution, farm-to-market roads and transportation networks;
*Low productivity of farmers brought by climate-related events and lack of capital and knowledge on technology innovation, thus, income is reduced and the overall supply in the market decreases. In some cases, productivity is compensated with heavy use of pesticides. Solutions: Improve productivity through climate-resilient technologies and capacitate farmers on the adoption of new farming technologies;
*Low participation of households in urban gardening due to various reasons such as limited natural resources, limited knowledge and skill, limited IECs and support from the Barangays,etc., therefore, households have less access to fresh, safe, and affordable food, health benefits are forgone, and unmanaged waste. Solutions: Information drive at the barangay level, intensify the implementation of Gulayan sa Barangay and Gulayan sa Paaralan as platform for community food source and strengthen city government support to urban agriculture;
*Inadequacy of safe and affordable food in the city due to heavy use of agrochemicals in conventional farming and dependency on outside sources. Solutions: Strengthen local food system and community-supported agriculture. ** Aileen P. Refuerzo
