Philippines: Bill filed promoting urban agriculture in metropolitan areas
The bill requires the local government units (LGUs) in cities and urban areas to enact local legislation institutionalizing urban agriculture and to grant necessary incentives to their constituents who actively participate in urban farming activities.
By Charissa Luci-Atienza
Manila Bulletin
Sept 5, 2020
Bukidnon Rep. Maria Lourdes Acosta-Alba has filed a bill seeking to promote urban agriculture in all metropolitan areas nationwide to address the country’s food security concerns and integrate institutional gardens program in primary and secondary school curricula.
The vice chairperson of the House Committee on Natural Resources said there is a need to develop climate-resilient communities in the metropolitan areas through the promotion of modern, appropriate, cost-effective, and environmentally safe agriculture technologies to ensure food security, promote a healthy citizenry, and an improve quality of life for urban dwellers.
“According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the urban population has an annual growth of four percent. This growth could mean that urban areas will be home to more than 50 percent of Filipinos in the future. However, urban areas also experience high hunger incidence based on the 2019 survey of the Social Weather Station,” she said in filing House Bill No. 7203 or the proposed “Instructional Gardens and Integrated Urban Agriculture Act of 2020.”
The House leader said urban agriculture will play a big role in ensuring food security while the country is fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Growing one’s own food might be the ‘new normal’ after COVID-19 that is why it is best to promote urban agriculture and educate the people to be able to plant in their own,” Acosta-Alba said.
She said her bill seeks to promote and develop urban agriculture, which has proven to address malnutrition, lessen poverty, and improve local economy.
HB 7203 mandates the Secretaries of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Science and Technology to promote the use of urban agriculture and vertical farming in the country’s urban areas as an intervention mechanism for further addressing food security concerns of the country.
Under the measure, idle and or abandoned government lots and buildings owned by either the national government or local governments or available land resources in state universities and colleges shall be considered for growing crops, raising livestock, and producing food.
Alba’s measure calls on Department of Education (DepEd), in coordination with the DA, to ensure integration of institutional gardens program in the academic curricula for elementary and secondary level students of both public and private academic institutions particularly in Agriculture, Practical Arts, Home Economics subjects, and other related subjects.
HB 7203 provides that all allocations of grants, endowments, donations, or contributions and technical assistance provided by private individuals or corporations to schools for the promotion and implementation of institutional gardens in the school curricula, as certified by the DepEd, shall be exempt from taxes and duties.
The bill requires the local government units (LGUs) in cities and urban areas to enact local legislation institutionalizing urban agriculture and to grant necessary incentives to their constituents who actively participate in urban farming activities.
