Back to Basics: Backyard Gardening Project

 

Back to Basics: Backyard Gardening Project

Early on his first term, Mayor Cezar T. Quiambao noticed that many pieces of land in Bayambang were left idle and unproductive. This prodded him to toy with the idea of introducing an ordinance that would exact additional tax on land left unproductive.

"That is what they did in Taiwan," he said, to cite an example.

If there was a tinge of hesitation in his proposed ordinance, it was because people might resent it instead of cooperate.

On the first anniversary of his administration’s declaration of “Revolution Against Poverty” on August 26, 2017, he ordered the newly created department of Bayambang Poverty Reduction Action Team (BPRAT) headed by then Municipal Administrator, Atty. Rodelynn Rajini A. Sagarino, to launch the Backyard Gardening Project.

Atty. Sagarino lost no time instructing her team, a coordinative body, to tap all LGU departments, government agencies, and private groups to concretize Mayor Quiambao's idea.

BPRAT sought the help of the Municipal Agriculture Office (MAO), Municipal Nutrition Action Office, General Services Office, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, Ecological Solid Waste Management Office, Local Council of Women, and barangay officials and key barangay residents. Soon after, on November 16, 2018, the team headed by Focal Person on Social Services, Valentine Garcia, launched the first backyard gardening activity in Brgy. Sanlibo, which emerged as among the poorest barangays in Bayambang, according to the latest data from the Municipal Planning and Development Office’s Community-Based Monitoring System.

Initially, they selected 8-10 Pantawid Pamilya beneficiary families per purok based on their available backyard space and capability to maintain a backyard garden. Sourcing seedlings from the MAO, they led the planting of seedlings of okra, sitaw (string beans), sili (chili), talong (eggplant), and kalabasa (squash). They also gave seeds of pechay, radish, and tomato. In addition, gardening implements such as trowels were distributed.

The families were encouraged to grow the vegetables themselves, and were told that their effort would be monitored by BPRAT, MAO, and DSWD.

This activity was replicated in the rest of the top 10 poorest barangays, namely Tanolong, Amancosiling Sur, Malioer, Hermoza, San Gabriel 2^nd, Manambong Sur, Manambong Parte, Inirangan, and Bani.

Soon, the same project was replicated in the rest of the town’s 77 barangays, whether urban or rural.

Eventually the need for a nursery in each barangay emerged, if the project had to be sustainable. Mayor Quiambao, therefore instructed the Agriculture Office to build a nursery for each of the 77 barangays, in cooperation with the respective barangay captains and councils, so the chosen households could have a steady source of vegetable seeds and seedlings for each planting cycle.

 When the project proved successful without the slightest threat of a new 'idle land tax ordinance,' in that the chosen households actually were able to harvest vegetables, the project was expanded into a communal gardening project by expanding the number of stakeholders and extending the land area used to 500 sqm.

 Among those included now were all sectors of the community. Everyone was free to take part in the planting, as well as in harvesting for their own household needs. This is how the humble backyard gardening project evolved into the Communal Gardening Project. (by Resty S. Odon & Diadema I. Martinez/photo by BPRAT)