City officials recently urged the 128 barangays to establish and maintain community vegetable gardens.
In Resolution 686, s. 2023, the council stated that the barangay, as the smallest political unit in the bureaucracy, has the mandate to reduce the incidents of malnutrition and promote the ecological well being of its residents.
The resolution was adopted from the Scout Official for a Day (Sofad) proposal introduced by Sofad Councilor Jhoanna Mae N. Poquiz.
The council said barangay community gardens provide for shared responsibility and proprietorship of the land and its produce when collectively developed and nurtured by the community.
The city council pointed out that developing community gardens has many benefits such as increasing access to fresh harvest, promotes good nutrition which improves the nutritional status of the community and improves mental health and forges stronger family ties, especially when family members participate in maintaining said gardens.
According to the resolution, having community gardens enables families without land or space to experience the joy of planting and harvesting aside from instilling ideals and deepens the appreciation of gardening and promotes a sense of community.
The pandemic has revived the people’s interest in gardening where people have turned to community gardens, also called survival gardens and container or pot gardens during those challenging days, thus, to maintain one in the barangays is an ingenious way to rise collectively above the crisis and it was seen as a mitigation measure against the impact of the pandemic to food security. – PIO release
