SILANG, Cavite – Dr. Julian F. Gonsalves, International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) Senior Global Adviser, on Tuesday told some 220 program planners from the Department of Education (DepEd) to diversify their school gardens to help nourish kids and the community.
Gonsalves was focal speaker at a forum on “Improving Food and Nutrition Security in the Philippines through School Intervention” at the IIRR Y.C. James Yen Center here.
Forum participants included education planners from the DepEd central office and regional schools division offices in the Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) and Mimaropa (Mindoro Oriental/Occidental, Marinduque, Palawan).
Gonsalves underscored that “agro-biodiversity conservation is central” as he discussed the role of schools to the country’s food and nutrition security.
The forum was organized not just to provide a platform for sharing of research results, but engage the participants in a healthy exchange to move forward in scaling out the Integrated School Model (a combination of DepEd’s supplemental feeding program, nutrition education and bio-intensive school garden).
Gonsalves, in his presentation on “Conserving Phil Agro-Biodiversity for Nutrition: The Role of Schools,” said that " maintaining genetic diversity (crops, livestock, trees) is essential to reduce vulnerability to climate change," noting that the country’s food systems are susceptible to natural disasters.
Schools are likewise advised to maintain inter-species diversity or raising lots of crops and the intra-species variants or a lot of varieties per crop and to optimize production under low or reasonable levels of inputs.
“Garden diversity invariably also means dietary diversity, diversify the garden, and the rest will follow,” Gonsalves advised.
According to IIRR senior global adviser, schools are logical places to start a program to reintroduce and conserve agro-biodiversity, where it can showcase, feature new recipes and where the use of vegetables can be enhanced through their feeding programs for malnourished school children.
He also highlighted that indigenous vegetables are generally better sources of nutrients, and their multiple parts from flowers, shoots, pods can be consumed and expect harvests to be spread over a wider period.
Locally adapted vegetable varieties can also evolve with time and can tolerate longer drought periods and occasional short duration floods, he added.
Gonsalves pointed out that IIRR has conceptualized the establishment of crop museums in schools so that the vanishing varieties could be searched, reproduced and shared them with other schools and local communities.
He added that school gardens serve as focal points for learning about nutrition, food systems and food safety, about science, environment and good health and they help bring back diversity and conserve these genetic resources for the country’s future needs. (PNA)
