Nutrition Month 2018 focuses on food gardening

TNutrition Month was created under Presidential Decree No. 491, also known as the Nutritional Act of the Philippines that orders the National Nutrition Council (NNC) to direct and organize the nationwide campaign.

Yearly, the Nutrition Month follows a specific theme that highlights a major and timely nutritional concern. For this year, the highlighted concern is on food gardening, which is why the NNC celebrates this year’s nutrition month with the theme “Ugaliing magtanim, sapat na nutrisyon aanihin!”

To come up with a theme, the NNC conducts a nationwide theme writing and logo making competition that will then be shortlisted and sent to the NNC Technical Committee for voting.

This year’s chosen theme came from Julie Ann Colipano, a resident from Valencia City, Bukidnon. Meanwhile, the logo was created by Ricky Mojica, an architect from Indang, Cavite.

The logo depicts a family cultivating a food garden, a vision that NNC aims Filipinos would turn into reality.

As it focuses on food gardening, the NNC aims to contribute to improved nutrition through means of improved food access by engaging more institutions into food gardening.

It specifically aims to encourage development of food gardens among families, communities, schools, and work spaces. It also aims to mobilize various stakeholders to provide a nurturing environment for sustainable food gardens.

However, it is important to acknowledge as to why food garden became this year’s main nutritional concern.

First and foremost, food garden is defined as the “intimate, multi-storey combinations of various trees and crops, sometimes in association with domestic animals, around homestead, and add that home garden cultivation is fully or partially committed for vegetables, fruits, and herbs, primarily for domestic consumption and secondary for additional household income.”

In a simple definition, food garden is an example of sustainable food production that includes raising livestock and investing on agricultural setting to produce labor and commodities. Additionally, these food gardens tend to be located near dwelling spaces for security, convenience, and special care.

A food garden embodies the following characteristics: located near residential area, contains high diversity of plants, may include raising animals that produce labor and commodities, production as supplementary rather than main source of family consumption and income, occupies small land area, and is a production system that the poor can easily enter.

Additionally, by having an established food garden generates multiple benefits for both the environment and the gardener.

Among them include: improve nutritional status, improve household food security, increase availability of food and better nutrition through food diversity, increase local biodiversity, alleviate food shortages during disaster, increase household income, offer opportunities for women, youth, elderly, and the disabled, as well as foster community mobilization, and health intervention.

Although, there are also multiple problems that hinder the establishment of food gardens. One of it is the lack of access to land and water.

This is a problem most experienced in urban areas where remote settling and accessibility to soil becomes a challenge. Add to it the family’s insecurity towards land ownership, making it even more difficult to sustain, let alone control the area. Moreover, there is also an insecurity towards the accessibility of water that varies in environments. In some locations, water is more scarce than land and more expensive to supply especially during the driest season.

But even so, man-made solutions are available to assist the owners.

For instance, to solve the lack of land, the government should distribute relatively small landholdings to the less fortunate. Meanwhile, as for the lack of water, the use of wells and artisinal irrigation can greatly aid drought prone areas.

Furthermore, technological solutions have also been created to help establish a family food garden. An example is hydroponics-a method of growing plants in a water-based, nutrient-rich solution.

Hydroponics does not use soil, but the root system that is supported using an inert medium. It allows the plant roots to come in direct contact with nutrient solution, while also having access to oxygen, which is essential for proper growth.

Food gardens can also help in the family’s income and livelihood. An example of this is direct selling of the produce which will then go into the family income. Not only that, but families can also earn more income by utilizing ingredients that are available in their garden rather than to buy it from a market.

Also, the national and local government units can take part in promoting food gardens by issuing livelihood programs, providing business seminars, and even lending start up materials to families.

The important matter is to highlight the importance of improving nutrition and food security through food gardening.