Community garden sustains, empowers San Roque residents through pandemic
MANILA, Philippines — The Tanimang Bayan community food gardens, a women-led and community-organized grassroots project in the urban poor community of Sitio San Roque in Quezon City, has grown from a food source to a "strategy for ensuring food security and defending land rights," a community organization said.
In a documentation report on the agroecological urban farming project, nonprofit alliance Save San Roque observed that the community's residents were "able to devise ways to fend for themselves" despite the lack of support from the national government.
This, the group said, came as an active and natural response to the dwindling supplies of the Kusinang Bayan (community kitchen) project put up during last year’s Enhanced Community Quarantine as residents waited for government aid.
"Residents knew from the start that the initial configuration of the Kusinang Bayan greatly depended upon the financial and in-kind donations of sympathetic donors. And as the pandemic progressed, these donations dwindled," the nonprofit's report read.
According to Weng Bautista, one of the garden's project leaders, the group has already planted and harvested okra, eggplant, squash, papaya, tomato, ginger, sweet potato, garlic, pechay, pulang sili, malunggay, sitaw, mustasa, and ampalaya since September 2021.
But the community gardens has ended up being more than just a source for their sustenance.
Despite the lack of government support, the residents of Sitio San Roque were able to devise ways to fend for themselves, paving the way for the emergence of the Kusinang Bayan (community kitchen) and subsequently, the Tanimang Bayan (community food garden).#SaveSanRoque pic.twitter.com/2zsPBzpJSX
— Save San Roque (@SaveSanRoque) January 7, 2022
How did they do it?
As early as 2020, members had already identified areas suitable to be used as agricultural plots.
But it wasn't until the project partnered with farmer groups and advocacy groups like SAKA "to enrich the farming skills of residents and capacitate them further on agroecology" that the project took off.
These partnerships, SSR said, consisted of advanced modules on farm planning, the creation of organic inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and agroecological farming processes. "These served as the knowledge base of [San Roque] members and volunteers for the Tanimang Bayan," the group said.
According to SSR, residents who had experience and technical knowledge in farming took on the role of organizing and mobilizing the community members in managing the plots.
Community solutions
"Bananas are used as a fertilizer...added with sugar. After seven days, we combine the juices with water. We water our crops with [Fermented Fruit Juice] solution three times a week," Bautista was quoted as saying.
"On the other hand, the [Fermented Plant Juice] is composed of sweet potato leaves. It is also added with sugar. Similarly, we wait for seven days before combining the juices out of the mixture with water. We water our crops with FFJ solution and FPJ solution alternately everyday."
The supply came from the donated fruits and vegetables from the San Roque Vendors' Association, among others, while they also grew "marigold flowers at the perimeter of farming plots [to help attract pollinators and deter pests."
Residents also came up with the idea of "using garlic as a more cost-effective alternative to the Oriental Herbal Nutrient pesticide" to prevent insects from coming near the crops.
Work teams, composed mostly of women, were also formed to work together collectively and systematically distribute the farm labor — such as watering, cultivating, producing organic inputs, and harvesting produce — equally
To harvest more efficiently, the community also came together and collectively designed a farming plan for cultivating different species of plants alongside each other.
The need for arable soil and bigger plots of land also eventually allowed them to reclaim spaces starting with other areas in the community that were not priority areas for demolition.
"Using the improved and streamlined farming process, expanding to Kamote and Moral (plots) has become easier and more efficient...Community members gradually extended the parameters of the existing plots. Eventually, they were able to add new plots. This was done covertly and incrementally to avoid suspicion from the guards," Save San Roque said.
Since KusBay is largely dependent on donations, the residents started the Tanimang Bayan in reclaimed spaces to produce their own vegetables for the community kitchen. ????????????
— Save San Roque (@SaveSanRoque) December 31, 2021
Learn more about Tanimang Bayan here: https://t.co/iFgh9lVdY6 pic.twitter.com/G3MKu32HqT
Harassment still reported amid pandemic
Even under the coronavirus-induced quarantines, members and volunteers still reported that the biggest challenge for the project was the continued harassment they faced, either at the hands of private security detail or security personnel including the police and military.
"Every move we make in the community garden, they call us out," Gelyn Rosilio, a community leader and one of the project leaders of the gardens was quoted as saying in Filipino.
"Residents are placed in constant danger and precarity: tower cranes lifting heavy construction materials regularly hover above their houses; excavation advances to where the residents’ houses are; construction activities pose constant threats to their safety; and harassment, and coercion to drive away residents have become rampant," SSR also said.
During the Enhanced Community Quarantines, the urban poor community was on the receiving end of raids and vilification from state forces. One of its first community kitchens was raided by cops and had its protest materials torn down.
Since then, though, officers of the Quezon City Police District have been reported for harassing picketers calling for government aid and in one occasion, snatching the phones of protesters recording altercations on camera.
Police and local government officials have since clarified that filming cops on video and protesting the national government’s pandemic response is in no way against the law.
READ: PNP officer grabs phone of urban poor volunteer after pickets calling for ayuda
Assertion of rights
More than just a food source, the documentation said, the community garden became "more meaningful" as those taking part in it reported "feeling empowered [while] their agency takes precedent in all the phases of the initiative."
Besides its practical function as a garden, the Tanimang Bayan also "became a strategy for the community to defend their land rights and resist demolition threats, serving as barriers to stop further encroachment of developers into the community."
Later on, the gardens did not just bring food security, but also knowledge sharing among members of the community, along with collectivism, empowerment, and even improved mental well-being.
"These countered the notion that the poor are lazy and unproductive and highlighted the residents’ self-reliance and self-sufficient practices," Save San Roque wrote.
"Members and volunteers have seen the value in utilizing and transforming demolished and unused spaces for the benefit of the community especially during these times of precarity."
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