DAR, QC gov’t lead harvest fest
The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), in partnership with the Quezon City government, illustrated that farming is no longer confined in its traditional turf — the rural areas, as it led the harvest festival in Barangay Bagong Silangan in an effort to provide food for every household in the city.
“Making every square meter of idle lot productive is our humble way of helping our people, especially the poor, to cope up with the ill-effects of the Covid 19 pandemic. It is actually a small step to combatting hunger and poverty,” DAR secretary John R. Castriciones said.
A brainchild of Castriciones, the “Buhay sa Gulay” project, was conceptualized after he noticed the 8,000-square-meter idle football field while distributing food packs to poor families at the parish church.
The Luntiang Paraiso urban farm situated at the New Greenland in Barangay Bagong Silangan is the city’s first urban vegetable farm under the “Buhay sa Gulay” initiative of the DAR and Department of Agriculture.
According to Castriciones, he strongly believes that hunger and poverty can be defeated if every vacant government and private lots will be planted with variety of vegetables for it to be productive and serve as additional sources of food for the country and income for the beneficiaries.
When news about project reached the office of Quezon City mayor Joy Belmonte, she quickly coordinated with the DAR and offered the seven-hectare idle lot in
Barangay Bagong Silangan for the project.