455 graduate from good agricultural practices training

BAGUIO CITY – Some four hundred fifty-five urban gardening practitioners from the different barangays of the city graduated from the good agricultural practices (GAP) training conducted by the local government to empower residents to embrace the backyard growing of organic crops.
Councilor Leandro B. Yangot, Jr., chairman of the City Council Committee on Market, Trade, Commerce and Agriculture, said that the training on vegetable production through organic urban gardening aims to make organic agriculture practitioners to be food self-sufficient by raising their own supply of vegetables.
He added that another objective of the training is to promote urban gardening and enhance the production of vegetables within and around the city aside from aggressively promoting waste recycling initiatives, food security and better access to healthy and safe food and vegetables.
Among the training modules taken by the graduates include solid and water management, soil analysis, composting, organic agriculture which includes formulation or organic concoctions or bio fertilizers, urban gardening and pest and disease management.
Initially, the covered barangays include Lucnab, Pinget, Sto. Tomas School Area, Pinsao Pilot Project, Irisan, Happy Hallow, San Luis Village, Lualhati, and the clustered barangays of Lower Rock Quarry, Upper Rock Quarry, Middle Rock Quarry, City Camp Proper, Upper Quirino-Magsaysay and the group of the Baguio Market Plaza Vendors Multipurpose Cooperative and other cooperatives in the city.
Yangot reported the participants also underwent hands-on training on tricoderma harzianum propagation and urban gardening-cum-integrated pest management.
Aside from the barangays, the trainees also came from various schools and police stations in the city to empower them to sustain the aggressive promotion of urban gardening as part of the way of life of residents for them to produce quality and healthy food for their families.
The hands-on training on tricoderma harzianum propagation aims to capacitate the urban garden advocates to propagate tricoderma harzianum at the village level and to know its benefits as biological control agent and as rapid composting technology.
On the other hand, the training on urban gardening-cum-integrated pest management was geared towards capacitating the Gulayan sa Paaralan and Gulayan sa Kapulisan focal persons to sustain the implementation of the noble programs in the schools and various police stations around the city.
The various trainings were done in partnership with the Cordillera office of the Department of Agriculture (DA-CAR) through the High Value Crops Development Program and the agriculture section of the City Veterinary Office.
Yangot claimed that the implementation of the training for organic agriculture practitioners will be a continuing program of the local government to empower residents to embrace urban gardening as part of their way of life by maximizing the use of available spaces within their residences to raise organic crops for their consumption. Baguio PIO / ABN

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