Urban farms

When I was last in the US the other year, I noticed a growing movement to convince suburbanites to convert their lawns and/or backyards to grow vegetables, fruits and herbs. The sustainability movement is about preserving the environment and promoting healthy living.

All that green grass in suburban homes may look nice but bad for the environment. The maintenance required to keep those lawns green increases greenhouse gases, pollutes ecosystems, wastes water, and diminishes biodiversity. Hmm… all those golf courses should start buying carbon credits too.

Grass lawns, the sustainability crowd points out, are expensive, unsustainable, and poor investments. Grass lawns and their upkeep come with heavy carbon costs. Better to grow salad vegetables and kitchen herbs and spices instead.

Urban farms may sound exotically new to many but not for me. My late mother, who grew up in Camiling, Tarlac, managed a small urban farm in our 450-square meter lot in Paco, Manila where we lived. She was a doctor whose medical clinic was in our house.

I am not sure it could be done the way my mother did it back then in the 50s and 60s. There must be ordinances that ban piggeries. She raised at any one time, up to three mother pigs, a dozen or two of chickens, some ducks and a couple of geese. We also had a lot of banana trees, a guava, star apple, mango and coconut trees within the lot.

We grew some vegetables. And all the household garbage ended up in a compost pit that produced the organic fertilizer for the plants.

Being a stickler for cleanliness, my mom made sure the pig pens are clean and odor free so we got no complaints from the neighbors. Still, there were times when some avian pest would decimate our chickens.

So urban farming may be considered something trendy today but my mom had been there long before. She was far ahead of her time.

What is urban farming for today’s generations? I Googled to find out.

Urban farming, according to one website, is a local food system of growing plants and raising livestock in and around cities, as opposed to traditional rural areas. It claims that today, 800 million people around the world rely on urban agriculture for access to fresh, healthy foods.

“Urban agriculture is versatile, allowing for different crops to be grown. This provides urban communities with direct access and control over nutritious and locally-produced food, which creates jobs and boosts the local economy.

“Urban farming is also good for the environment and positively impacts household food security. All of these factors result in poverty reduction, which helps quickly developing urban areas.”

If it is so good, why aren’t we seeing more of it around us? I emailed Tessie Sy-Coson and Robina Gokongwei-Pe to get them excited about using the resources of their conglomerates to promote urban farming.

Their conglomerates include a property arm which I am sure, has done a lot of land banking. A lot of the land in their land bank is probably idle while waiting for the next condo/mall plans to materialize. In the meantime, why not grow some food there.

One other reason why I zeroed in on these two ladies is because they have giant supermarkets. There are times when typhoons and floods cut off our vegetable supply line from Baguio. It is good to have an in-city source.

That was also what former agriculture secretary Art Yap was thinking of, an alternative to Baguio vegetables. We visited some of these upland farms in Quezon province with Baguio cool weather and the idea seemed promising. Sec. Art established bagsakan markets along the superhighway to NCR but I guess this was not enough.

I am not sure I convinced the two ladies. Their replies to me were rather lukewarm. Perhaps, they might be thinking they are too big to think this small and I am wasting their time.

Is the idea too small for a big conglomerate?

Not if you ask Ramon Ang of San Miguel. RSA initiated an urban farming project on a 750-sqm space right in SMC’s head office complex in Ortigas Center. Called Backyard Bukid, it aims to respond to food security, generate additional income and develop a sense of empowerment among some of its head office support staff.

Those who signed up are now growing produce to either augment their own food supply or to sell to other employees. The “gardeners” visit the garden twice a day, six times a week. They assign among themselves who will sow seeds, water the plants, apply organic fertilizer and remove weeds.

The selling process is also a team effort, as each member makes sure all orders are fulfilled.

SMC tapped the School for Experiential and Entrepreneurial Development (SEED) Philippines to help launch the project. SEED conducted agri-entrepreneurship training and mentorship program with modules on values formation, farm management, supply chain management and agri-enterprise development.

SMC’s backyard gardeners have successfully grown bokchoy, camote, eggplant, kangkong, green lettuce, romaine lettuce, mustard, okra, siling labuyo, pechay, cilantro, winged bean and kale.

They tested their entrepreneurial skills last year when they held their first box-all-you-can-event, where customers pay a fixed amount for a full box of fresh produce from the “bukid.”

Last Christmas, they also offered the Halaman Holidays Growing Kits, a DIY home gardening kit complete with seedlings, a ceramic vase, soil, fertilizer and a growing guide. RSA said they will expand the project to other SMC sites.

It amazes me how RSA can think of very big projects one day like a brand-new international airport and the next day, a backyard garden on a 750-sqm portion of SMC’s head office parking lot. The very big and the very small projects are both needed as we face the future.

I noticed in my QC property tax receipt this year that there is now an imposition for idle land. NCR LGUs should require idle lot owners to plant or the city can use the money collected to have someone else to plant. The urban areas must think of their food security too.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.