Two months after their training on vegetable gardening, students of the beneficiary-schools of the project, Galing-PCAARRD kontra COVID-19 Program: Bio-Intensive Gardening (BIG) Panlaban sa COVID-19 para sa Ilocos, are now enjoying their first harvests.

Students of the beneficiary schools, the Mariano Marcos Memorial Elementary School (MMES), Hilario Valdez Memorial Elementary School (HVMES), Catalino Acosta Memorial Elementary School (CAMES), and Baay Elementary School (BES) of the City of Batac, are now fully engaged in growing and maintaining their school-community gardens as they begin to harvest flowers and fruits from the seeds and seedlings they planted last July.

Seeds of pechay, okra and pole sitao and seedlings of squash, bitter gourd, eggplant, tomato, and finger pepper were distributed to school-community gardens established in strategic areas where most of the students of the school are located.

During the virtual pre-dispersal training, BIG Project leader, Ms. Marissa Atis encouraged everyone in a motion to ‘us invest in their young hearts and minds the value of eating vegetables, such that, when they grow older, eating it becomes a part of their eating habit. By doing that, we influence their lifestyle and inculcate a healthy diet’.

The BIG project is instrumental in sustaining safe and healthy food in the dining tables of Ilokanoes amid the pandemic. By engaging the youth into bio-intensive gardening, they are also exposed to the potentials and promises of agriculture in bringing development in the agriculture sector especially in the rural areas.

The project also supports the Plant, Plant, Plant Program (4Ps) of the national government including the Department of Education’s program, Agmula, Agtaraken, Agtagibalay, ken Agliwliwa (4As) Program.

The BIG Project is implemented by the MMSU Research and Extension Directorates and the Ilocos Agriculture, Aquatic, and Natural Resources Research and Development Consortium (ILAARRDEC) with funding support from the DOST - Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic, and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD) and in collaboration with the Department of Education - Schools Division of Batac.

For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3Bmy0xa. 

Airing on Bio-Intensive Gardening accessible at https://bit.ly/3anMYHc.  

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