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As part of the call by the Department of Agriculture (DA) for everyone to engage in urban agriculture, a family from Tagkawayan, Quezon has already harvested its fruit nay’ vegetable of labor.

Rebecca Marquez An and her family began planting vegetables on April 14 and it has been plentiful since they share their produce with their neighbors.

Rebecca said that they have always had vegetables on their table since their garden began to grow. She also said this wouldn’t be possible without DA CALABARZON’s free seeds.

“The seeds from DA was of great help to our family during this COVID-19 pandemic. My parents may have lost their jobs, but our garden still manages to provide delicious and healthy food every day,” Rebecca said.

Rebecca’s family planted and harvested various vegetables such as eggplant, tomato, cucumber, spinach, papaya, string beans, siling panigang, siling labuyo, and a lot more with seed inputs from the Department through the urban gardening program.

Urban agriculture is one of the main DA programs under the Plant, Plant, Plant Program also known as the Ahon Lahat, Pagkaing Sapat Kontra COVID-19 program.

It aims to ensure food security by providing household with free seeds so that they have immediate access to safe and healthy food while staying at home during this pandemic, by reducing the difficulties of entering the market, and by investing a significant amount of money.

Since its inception, the DA CALABARZON has distributed a total of 15,247 kilograms of various vegetable seeds in the region, worth P34.8 million. The regional office’s urban agriculture project has already catered to 377,970 households in 140 cities and municipalities.

Like Rebecca, many other families are also trying to adapt to the “new normal” brought by this pandemic. But with the help of DA CALABARZON’s urban agriculture interventions, food security is in everyone’s hands. • (MAP, DA-RAFIS)