Since retiring on January 1, 2016 as a public teacher, Ellen Acain Rosario embarked a life of productivity in her hometown in Bacolod, Lanao del Norte. Her 40 years of teaching and empowering young minds are now punctuated with more time spent in her established farm Queensland.
It was a fine Thursday morning when we arrived at the farm of Carlito Cortez in San Fernando, Bukidnon. We were scheduled to interview this young farmer who preferred to work on his farm after securing his college diploma.
It was my first time to go to Sumilao, when the bus dropped me off in Kisolon. When I asked around for directions, I found out that from the juncture between the national road and the road going from the opposite direction from where I was dropped off, is where Sumilao is.
Many Filipinos have become plant aficionados during the quarantine, but lifestyle blogger Marjorie Pineda-Uy, or “Marj” to her friends, started urban farming way back before it became the big thing that it is today.
“Sometime in 2011, I was invited to visit Costales Nature Farms in Majayjay, Laguna. Out of curiosity, I accepted the invitation without any expectations, except to experience a ‘buhay probinsya’ kind of weekend,” Marj recalled.
The trip eventually turned out to be an educational experience for her, even playing a huge part in her lifestyle change.
DILIMAN, Quezon City—Now a daily activity in the household of actress and chef Judy Ann Santos-Agoncillo, urban farming has become a constant source not only of proper nutrition but also of a garden-to-table learning experience for their family.
The now-certified plantita, who ventured into urban farming when the community quarantine started, has discovered the advantages in having their own vegetable production area at home. She shared this, together with some vegetable recipes, in the fourth episode of Agri Tayo streamed over Facebook and YouTube on July 23.
DILIMAN, Quezon City—Practitioners of urban agriculture in the country are stressing the importance of having the willingness to learn proper seed-to-table techniques as key to productive farming at home.
“You will always reap something from gardening, whether good or bad… This is a learning experience for everybody, and there are so many resources out there available for us to learn from,” celebrity farmer Mylene Dizon said.
In the third episode of Agri Tayo, dubbed as “Meet Your (Urban) Garden II”, Dizon called on everyone to start urban gardening now.
| Extension services continue to evolve. With the challenges that extension workers and farmers face, the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) continues to explore various strategies to improve its efforts as the extension and training arm of the Department of Agriculture. In over 30 years, the ATI has celebrated various successes and learned from the lessons during hard times. Nonetheless, we are proud to be standing the test of time through the support of our partners and the clientele themselves. This is the ATI Today, more committed to bring you extension services beyond boundaries. |
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