Urban aggie technologies suited for Metro Manila

Did you know that just to have dishes of pinakbet, Metro Manilans need a monthly supply of 308,160 kilos of the ingredient vegetables?

That is, according to Department of Agriculture (DA) statistics, 61,630 kilos of each of ampalaya, eggplant, okra, squash, and stringbeans.

The Big City’s monthly requirements (also in kilos) to whip up chopsuey are as follows: cabbage, 57,010; sayote, 53,928; Baguio beans, sweet pepper and carrots, 38,520 each; cauliflower, 38,520 sugarpeas, 8,490; and brocolli 6,163.

For sinigang, the monthly requirements of Metro Manilans (in kilos) are: taro (gabi); radish, 92,448 each; sitao (beans) 777,040; kangkong, 30,816; and sili (pepper), 15,408.

Most of Metro Manila’s vegetables come from the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, and Southern Tagalog.

Thing is, the metropolis continues to depend on neighborhood and outlying provinces for its food needs, including (totally) rice. The country’s major urban center accounts for almost 20 percent of the ever-increasing national rice consumption rate (now placed at about 26,000 tons per day).

But MM need not totally rely on other regions to feed it.

In vegetable production, for instance, many households, especially those in the low-income levels, can grow a big part of their needs through user-friendly technologies developed by government research institutions and agencies.

The Central Luzon Station University (CLSU) has already developed packages of technologies (POT) that can make small backyards or urbanites bloom with nutritious vegetables.

CLSU, currently headed by Dr. Rodolfo C. Undan, has also published a book on how to grow common vegetable crops (saluyot, eggplant, tomato, etc).

And the soil needed in vegetable growing in the city?

The university has also pointed out that the heap of ‘Smokey Mountain’ wastes, when processed, are good materials for vegetable gardening.

We remember, too, that the Department of Science and Technology-Industrial Technology Development Institute (DOST-ITDI) once announced that it had developed a bioreactor that can process wastes into garden soil.

Lately, with DA-Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) funding, the UP Los Baños Institute of Plant Breeding (UPLB-IPB) headed by Director Desiree Hautea has developed an urban-suited technology called Simple Nutrient Addition Program or "SNAP hydroponics."

As BAR asserted through Ma. Lizbeth J. Baroña: "You may be living in the middle of the metropolis with only a few square meters of space for a backyard or none at all, but this should not keep you from having your vegetable ‘farm’. The technology that allows for this possibility is "SNAP hydroponics".

By the way, UPLB-IPB offers (for a minimal amount) packets of quality seeds of backyard vegetables, including a five-in-one (tomato, amplaya, okra, eggplant, and pole sitao) for the pinakbet dish.

Indeed, in these hard times, why not practice urban agriculture? – Rudy A. Fernandez