642 public schools targeted for veggie garden expansion

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture-6 has targeted 642 public schools in Western Visayas to be its beneficiaries for vegetable seeds as part of its “Gulayan sa Paaralan” expansion program this year to help address hunger and malnutrition concerns in the community.

DA-6 vegetable coordinator Felicitas Neturada said a total of 1,491 public schools both in elementary and high school had already availed themselves of vegetable seeds since the program started in 2011.

Neturada said the department is hoping to reach its target goal of a total of 4,031 public schools across the region before 2016.

The DA-6 provides indigenous vegetable seeds to its beneficiaries like eggplant, squash, pole sitao, kangkong, okra, tomato, ampalaya, pechay, cucumber and patola. School beneficiaries were given gardening tools such as speeding forks, rakes and sprinklers among others as their start up garden inputs, she said.

She also said the program will complement the supplemental feeding program of the schools by providing fresh and nutritious vegetables for the pupils. “This will help curve the malnutrition level which is one of the main causes of school dropouts in the region,” she said. (FREEMAN)