Living in the city doesn’t pay. It costs. A large part of this cost is the expensive food that you need to buy. A cynic friend pointed out to me: you can always buy junk food, which is cheaper and is available everywhere.
In one news program, an ordinary worker earning minimum wage of around P500 was followed by the camera as he was buying ingredients for his family’s daily meal at the neighborhood palengke, struggling to fit everything within his daily wage and is left with P8. What about his transportation fare, cost of electricity and water? Not to mention the load for the Internet for his kids’ education? The point was well made.
Cost of meat and vegetables is now so way out of the reach of our neighborhood liempo cum kimchi home delivery suki that he has recently closed down his burgeoning enterprise.
It leads me to think: Can’t we bring the farm to the city? Can’t we, city dwellers, grow and produce our own food?
If I remember right, there used to be an urban farming project in Quezon City, which has large tracts of empty lands. Why not start thinking again of urban farming and let a million backyards and idle lands bloom with vegetables and fruits? Crazy? Maybe, but why not?
After all, the pandemic has already catalyzed the emergence of plantitos and plantitas. Why stop with growing indoor plants? Why not move on to urban gardening and farming.
Think of these immediate benefits to your family. When you grow your own food, you don’t need to spend a lot of money to get the healthy and nutritious vegetables, herbs and fruits that you need. These are low in cholesterol, high in fiber, and have beneficial vitamins and nutrients. Imagine plucking the fresh produce whenever they are ready for harvest, so you don’t need to worry about the shelf life.
Then, you can even sell excess produce to other people. It can also create a source of livelihood for people in your neighborhood. Why not form a mini farming cooperative?
Urban farming is a perfect solution for vacant and underutilized lots scattered throughout cities. Let each city look for unused idle empty lands and convert them into communal gardens or farms. Then let the community take care of these mini farms, which now become a source of their vegetables and fruits at very low cost. Let’s face it, many city dwellers are migrants from rural provinces and have farming know-how. Some of the idle lands or some areas in the city parks can also be converted into fishing ponds.
In Japanese supermarkets, there is a certain space reserved for the produce of local farmers or gardeners. They even post the pictures of the farmers so people get to know them. Maybe we can do the same here.
Or we can designate or even build a specific place as farmers’ markets where produce of neighborhoods can be sold on certain days. This will give a run for the money of middlemen who bring vegetables and fruits from far-flung farms. It will definitely make the cost of food items in the usual palengke or supermarkets within the budgets of the ordinary housewife.
Urban gardening can help alleviate rising food costs by providing city dwellers the opportunity to grow and harvest their own fresh and nutritious food at a fraction of what the same produce would otherwise cost at the palengke or supermarket.
It will also benefit local food service enterprises, as they will have a steady source of inexpensive basic items for their food offerings.
In Detroit City, one patch of land, 12 vacant houses were removed to grow food. The result: almost 200,000 kilograms of produce for 2,000 local families, provided volunteer experience to 8,000 residents and made the area livable again, aside from being edible.
There’s a study published in the journal Earth’s Future and led by the Arizona State University and Google. If well planned, the study concludes that “urban farms could supply almost the entire recommended consumption of vegetables for city dwellers, while cutting food waste and reducing emissions from the transportation of agricultural products.” Not to mention making cities more livable because of increased vegetation cover and other positive things that will solve many urban environmental problems.
But there is also another good reason for cultivating food gardens at home or in our neighborhood.
It’s educational for our urban children who don’t even know or care where their food comes from. A small backyard garden can help them get educated about growing food. That’s a unique skill to have in today’s world. It can educate our children about sustainable food and the health benefits. That’s something worth learning and teaching.
Exposure to urban gardening and farming will also make farming cool for young people. In the words of economist Cielito Habito, it will give the “benefit of drawing young people back to farming, as opportunities in the “digitalization” of agriculture and agribusiness make it more exciting for millennials and Gen Z to immerse themselves in and create wealth in the farms.”
What if you don’t have a huge backyard? Urban gardening experts say that you don’t need a lot of space to grow your own food. There are techniques like vertical gardening, container gardening, rooftop gardening, and hydroponic gardening that make good use of space. A little Pinoy abilidad will do it.
Let’s transform our cities into vibrant and “edible” landscapes, revamp our backyards and balconies and rooftops into garden oases. Let’s engage our urban youth by giving them opportunities to gain hands-on experience growing food and learn the importance of eating a healthy, balanced diet.
Let’s connect with other people who grow it!
I long to see the day when we can see urban farms—plots, indoor vertical farms and rooftop gardens nestled among busy streets and skyscrapers.
Let’s make growers and farmers out of urban dwellers. Let us create a city that grows and produces what it eats.