Philippines: Retired physician grows food and raises native chickens in her backyard
Darag chickens are usually grown in backyards, says Salacata. They are small and versatile that do not need to be highly maintained as they feed themselves with pasture.
By Vina Medenilla
Manila Bulletin
Dec 29, 2020
Excerpt:
In Bacolod, a garden sits in a backyard that used to be a garbage dump. The area was then unoccupied, not until when Anabel Villanueva-Salacata, a retired infectious disease doctor and owner of Twenty Six Herb Garden, decided to transform the lot into an edible garden. “You do not have to have a 2,000 or 3,000 sqm or a hectare of land,” she said, explaining that one can grow anything either in a driveway, area in your dirty kitchen, or a condo’s balcony. “Just have some small pots and choose the plants that you want to eat.”
They also grow rabbits for meat and rabbit manure that they use for composting. “That’s another healthy, lean, high-protein, low cholesterol, low-fat meat that is an option for low-income families to grow in their backyard,” Salacata said. In less than a hectare of land, her backyard is equipped with crops like varieties of lettuce, animals like rabbits and native chickens, as well as their on-site restaurant where they serve and offer what they grow. They are the only garden-restaurant that serves rabbit meat in the city as well.
For non-marketable products or those goods that are damaged, they feed them to their chickens, rabbits, and worms, which allows them to alleviate the garden’s food waste. “That’s something we want to tell our children, that you don’t have to have a lot of garbage generated on a farm,” Salacata adds.
