First of five parts
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—“If Nebuchadnezzar had his Hanging Gardens of Babylon, I also have my ‘Hanging Gardens of Rom.’”
With this opening sentence coupled with several pictures of Nebuchadnezzar’s Hanging Gardens of Babylon flashing on the screen followed by pictures of ampalaya (bitter melon or charantia) vines hanging from the roof of his rented two-story house in Davao City, Perfecto “Jojo” Rom effectively drew the attention of the crowd to his lecture on Urban Agriculture, specifically on “Urban Container Gardening” or UCG.
Rom graduated from Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan in 2001 with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Agriculture Major in Crop Science through a full scholarship provided by the Xavier Science Foundation from 1997 to 2001. He has visited other countries teaching those willing to listen the concept of UCG.
Using discarded, broken plastic containers and even used tires, 35-year-old Rom has embarked on a one-man crusade teaching households and individuals to contribute to the Philippines’ food security program, as well as ecological sanitation and environmental protection through urban farming.
“RA [Republic Act] 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 is most effectively implemented at the household level. Growing one’s own food, nutritious organic food, using the household’s own bio-waste as fertilizers and as planting materials effectively helps the environment and reduce the government’s waste disposal expenses,” he explained. “Urban Container Gardening is an inexpensive way of growing one’s own food anywhere in the house using recyclable containers and soil mixed with compost made from the household waste as fertilizers.”
UCG can be done even if someone has no space in his/her house for a garden. “Instead of planting flowers and putting them on your window sills or on the side of walkways and hallways, you can plant vegetables and spices. And every morning, you’ll just have to get some fresh leaves from your ‘garden’ and have a nutritious salad,” he said.
Rom said he began developing the concept for UCG in 2002 when he was assigned as the agronomist-cum-community organizer of the Peri-urban Vegetable Project of Xavier University under the European Union- and German-funded Asia Urban Integrated Solid Waste Management and Food Security Project once directed by Dr. Robert Holmer, the German agriculturist who is now the director of the East and Southeast Asia Regional Office of Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC), The World Vegetable Center, based in Bangkok.
“Since veggies should be fresh when consumed and often refrigeration is a [cost] limitation, production of veggies near the places they are consumed is an advantage.
This doesn’t mean that production of veggies in rural areas must not be done, but urban gardening is a very promising way of supplying city dwellers with affordable and nutritious food. Some of the advantages are that biodegradable waste can be reused as fertilizer and contribute to overall urban environmental management,” Holmer said through e-mail.
Fruits and vegetable grown through UCG are also 100 percent free from harmful chemicals because they are grown organically, using the household’s own bio-wastes as fertilizers through composting. “Even one’s own urine can be used as organic liquid fertilizer. But this should be mixed with other bio-waste like rice wash in a strict proportion,” Rom said.
Addresses food security
Holmer said that Rom’s crusade for urban farming through UCG to teach households grow their own nutritious, organic food, while at the same time, contributing to the protection of the environment through proper solid-waste management via the principles of reduce, recycle and reuse is very important to city dwellers, especially since nutritious food prices are way above the average working man’s salary. He also said that city dwellers have a need for nutritious organic food which is not readily available.
“There is a need for fresh food and urban agriculture, through Urban Container Gardening, gives us the opportunity to provide fresh, organic, nutritious food to the market. Veggies are particularly suited to be grown in urban areas since they grow fast, can readily be sold and consumed ,and they only need little space [such as containers],” Holmer said.
If several households practice UCG, they can mass-produce fresh, organic vegetables on a daily basis for a market thus, creating a microenterprise without putting in too much capital, Rom said.
To be continued
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In Photo: Urban farmer Perfecto “Jojo” Rom, an Agriculture graduate of the Xavier University- Ateneo de Cagayan de Oro, plants vegetables in plastic containers in his backyard in Davao City. (Bong D. Fabe)
