Upland barangays of Ormoc City is no stranger to calamities. They experienced loss of livelihood when their abaca plants where eradicated due to “bugtok”. Then came financial losses due to typhoons, foremost of which, was Yolanda. The losses were not only to production but also to soil fertility, which contributed to the low market value of products.

The problem was responded by the Claretian Missionaries who provided training on organic farming technology and established clusters of organic communal gardens as learning sites for farmers in barangays Milagro, Dolores, Cabaon-an, Lake Danao, Cabintan, Ga-as and Liberty. With limited resources, the group collaborated with ATI-RTC 8 for further training on sustainable, diversified and organic agriculture system.

On March 25-27, 2015, ATI-RTC 8 conducted the training on vegetable-based farming systems focusing on technologies for climate change resiliency under its program "From Devastation to Sustainable Production". Twenty-eight farmers from the seven barangays attended the training. The participants were young with an average age of 37.72 years old, the youngest was 14 years old.

Topics discussed in the training included: Web of Life; Mitigating Climate Change; Sustainable Agriculture; Vermicomposting; GAP on Vegetable Postharvest; Alternative Pest Management on Vegetable Production; Soil: The Basis of Organic Agriculture; Nutrient Management; Pakusot System; Promotion and Marketing of Organic Products; and Integrated Diversified Organic Farming System (IDOFS).

The participants were also taught in making farm plan based on their existing communal gardens. During the workshop, each cluster made a farm sketch based on existing components, after which they made farm plan using the IDOFS principle and taking into account climate change risk reduction. The farm plans will serve as guide in developing their communal garden and their backyard gardens.