AMID the unprecedented global pandemic of coronavirus disease (Covid-19), stakeholders are being urged to plant to ensure food security and enhance survival.
And in line with the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) “Plant, Plant, Plant program” some 4,446 kilograms of various vegetable seeds were distributed in the Cordillera region as of April 30.
The program aims to ensure sustainable food production and availability, food accessibility and affordability amid the crisis with the department distributing seeds since the third week of March.
“Families will now have the opportunity to produce their own fresh and healthy food from their backyards in these times of enhanced community quarantine,” said Dr. Cameron Odsey, DA-CAR executive director.
Odsey added home or survival home gardening is expected to augment the local food supply and provide access to food during the pandemic.
Joan Bacbac, DA-CAR High-Value Crops and Development Program (HVCDP) coordinator, said there is a need to plant during the uncertain times even as the Cordillera region has enough supply of vegetables to meet consumer requirements for the year.
Seeds distributed under the ‘Plant, Plant, Plant program’ are pechay, lettuce, spinach, beans, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant, squash, patola, ampalaya, okra and tomatoes.
In La Trinidad, Benguet, Mayor Romeo Salda disclosed some P2.5 million were appropriated for the purchase of seeds for vegetable and cut flower farmers in the town.
Salda on Thursday added the move is in support of the agriculture’s department program.
Benguet, dubbed as the salad bowl of the country, remains the top temperate vegetable producer as farming remained unhampered amid the Covid–19 pandemic.
Governor Melchor Diclas of Benguet last week said since the start of the imposed Enhanced Community Quarantine, farmers had been working hard.
The official added the provincial government assured that farm inputs, supply and seedlings are available for farmers to continuously produce food in the province with agriculture as its main source of livelihood.
“On relief operations, most municipalities are good, as most municipalities who do not need relief goods, they can produce their own food. We are food producing, we have vegetables,” he said.
The governor also commended the constituents of the town of Bakun after 35 individuals waived their Social Amelioration Program (SAP) in barangay Gambang so that other qualified families will be accommodated on the said program according to Bakun Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council added.
Waiving of relief and assistance is not only evident in Benguet but also in the town of Sadanga in Mt. Province.
The local government on March 30 decided to waive food relief to benefit the less fortunate in other areas who cannot sustain themselves, while the town sustains themselves while they can.