Cotabato City — During this time of community lockdown amid the COVID-19 outbreak, one must learn to do “survival gardening.”
This was the advice of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s (BARMM) head of the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Agrarian Reform.
Dr. Mohammad Yacob, MAFAR minister, said encouraged families displaced by the lockdown as well as internally displaced persons “to build 'survival garden" to ensure food supply for their own consumption.
Aside from packed rice and canned goods initially distributed to residents, the BARMM also provided IDP families with seeds of tomato, lettuce, cucumber, eggplant, squash, string beans, okra, bitter gourd, and Chinese kangkong.
The region’s agricultural officials cited a successful vegetable farm in Saguiaran, Lanao del Sur, which started in 2017 with only few plots of backyard gardens maintained by some displaced families from the Marawi siege. It has since expanded enough for a commercial-scale production.
Dr. Kadiguia Abdullah, information head of BARMM-MAFAR, said with some innovative approaches, such as recycling plastic containers and rubber tires stuffed with soil, urban residents can also develop their own “survival gardens.”
Yacob said apart from hybrid rice seeds delivered earlier to Marawi evacuees, MAFAR will also distribute vegetable seeds to sustain a community program on backyard gardening in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Services and Development.
MAFAR has already started distributing hybrid rice seeds to producing farm communities of Datu Abdullah Sangki in Maguindanao on March 26, 2020.
Yacob said MAFAR on March 31 also provided vegetable seeds for Marawi evacuees sheltered and are farming in vast agricultural areas in Saguiaran, Lanao del Sur and in Matungao, Lanao del Norte.
"Wala tayong source of income kundi ang pagtatanim ng gulay at sa loob ng ilang buwan ay pwede na silang maka-harvest, that’s why we have to enhance backyard gardening," Yacob said.
Yacob said MAFAR supports partner advocate-groups promoting sustainable production for consumption such as the TipidTanim team by providing them vegetable seeds supply.