Philippines: Department of Agriculture hikes budget for urban farming
She said these demo farms would help empower communities to have access to safe and nutritious food, grow their own food and gain livelihood by selling crops.
Philippine Star
Aug 4, 2023
Excerpt:
The Department of Agriculture (DA) is scaling up its urban agriculture program with a higher budget and more partnerships to aid in achieving food security.
The DA is increasing its budget for its National Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture Program (NUPAP) next year while forging more partnerships to push for urban farming, DA program director Gerald Glenn Panganiban said during the launch of its partnership with Nestlé yesterday.
From P376 million this year, the DA sought to increase this to almost P500 million next year.
‘It is only this year that we started to have a budget support. Previously, we only get contributions from Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) for training, a bit of budget from the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI)… But as a national program, the budget this year is still small considering its importance,’ he said.
The proposed NUPAP budget will be spread out to all regions and will focus on production support such as provision of seeds, equipment and facilities, as well as training and information dissemination.
To sustain the program, the DA also forges partnerships with the private sector.
‘We were running the program for two years without a budget. We cannot do this alone…we need partnerships with the private sector to make it sustainable,’ Panganiban said.
As an example, the DA – through Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) – has partnered with Nestlé Philippines through the MAGGI Sarap Sustansya Advocacy to advance efforts to promote urban agriculture in Filipino communities to achieve food self-sufficiency, improving their access to and consumption of more plant-based food.
