Tuesday, October 07, 2008 Alabado: Urban Farms By Roberto P. Alabado III Planning Perspectives
I ALWAYS believe that food security must be one of a city's priorities. The small city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore have agriculture programs, they produce a significant portion of their livestock and vegetable needs. I am not saying that we should be food self-sufficient but at least we should produce a good portion of our requirements.
While I was in Germany, we visited urban gardens that were owned by the local government. The local government-owned city properties were divided into 50 square meters lots. Citizens can lease these lots to plant vegetables and even flowers if they like. Of course, no trees, no houses and animals are allowed in the plots although each plot is fenced. This arrangement allowed its urban citizens access to land and grow vegetables for their household consumption.
In Japan, it is usual to see rice lands in the middle of the large towns. They have been trying to preserve their agricultural land and traditions. Rice farmers are given huge subsidies to continue planting rice. These incentives enable them to resist the urge to sell their farms for commercial purposes.
In the Philippine setting, I remember the urban vegetable farms in UP Diliman.
Urban farmers leased idle land from the university and they grew various vegetables through organic farming. This created a highly saleable product as urbanites visited their small stall to buy garden fresh organic vegetables in the afternoon.
I heard a local high-end subdivision has a policy that allows empty lots to be used as vegetable gardens. Owners of empty lots who fail to pay their annual subdivision dues are persuaded to allow the homeowners association to manage their lots which are then converted to vegetable gardens cultivated by hard working urban poor families.
I remember the old man who grew alugbati in the empty lot behind our house during the 90s. He asked permission from the lot owner to plant vegetables in the empty lot. After weeks of clearing the lot, he planted alugbati, cassava and a few bananas. From then on, he weeded his garden twice a week and often harvesting a huge bundle of veggies to sell. I learned he was also managing other vegetable plots around our subdivision and that the income derived from the daily harvest enabled him to send his children to school.
Now how can we integrate agriculture in our city?
Just look around the old subdivisions and housing projects of cities, you will see many vacant lots. These are usually owned by absentee landowners or land speculators who really do not need them in the near future.
The local government must persuade these landowners to allow other people to use these as vegetable gardens. We can offer local incentives like tax holidays for cooperative landowners and in extreme cases threaten hefty idle land taxation to those who resist. Of course, no temporary or permanent structure must be constructed on the empty lot as a safeguard against eventual squatting. Maybe the local government unit can be the lessee of these idle lands so it can really guarantee the temporary use of the land by the urban poor vegetable growers. This way, landowners will be more agreeable in leasing out their idle assets.
The barangay local government can make this as their food security project. Rather than encourage the urban poor to plant vegetables in pots, I think that we have to prioritize the development of the large idle lots for vegetable farming. You can also visit GEM Village and see the productive vegetable gardens in their previously idle lots.
There will be problems in implementing these suggestions but at the end of the day, what is important is that we make our land productive, our urban poor employed and our urban citizens healthier.
I maintain a small vegetable plot at the back of my house. I have tried experimenting various crops but found that okra and eggplants are easy to grow. As to my bell peppers and tomatoes, well, let's just say that they decided that they do not like my plot. I also grow herbs in individual pots to flavor my cooking. I realize that this activity provides me needed exercise and keeps me in touch with nature.
Although I may need a much bigger plot to provide my table with fresh vegetables daily, whatever meager harvest I've had has strengthened my resolve that urban farming is part of the solution to solve unemployment and hunger.
