Community-based seed production of traditional vegetables to enhance nutrition security and empower farmers in the Philippines
2015
Ebert, A. W. | Santos, E. B de los | San Buenaventura, A. | Imperial, R. M.
AVRDC - The World Vegetable Center and the Department of Agriculture-Region V of the Philippines through its High Value Crops Development Program joined forces to provide initial funding for the implementation of a project on “Community-based Conservation and Multiplication of Selected Indigenous Vegetables” in Santa Teresita, Baao, Camarines Sur from 2009 to 2011. Close cooperation with the local government units of Baao, the owner of La Huerta Farm, and a number of voluntary farmer participants was fundamental to achieving the objectives of the project. Seed of a range of underutilized vegetable crops was provided by AVRDC from its collection of mostly Asian traditional vegetables. These crops were complemented by several traditional vegetable crops popular in the Philippines. The project provided technical support to farmers for the conservation and multiplication of traditional vegetables to ensure the availability of high quality seed of promising lines for home and school gardens and commercial production. The project made a significant contribution in halting the on-going threat of genetic erosion of these local landraces and semi-wild vegetable crops. It also empowered farmers, especially women, to save, use, exchange and sell their seeds to sustain the diversity of crops grown on-farm and promote greater diversity in diets. A field day at La Huerta Farm attracted more than 150 farmers, municipal agriculturists, and members of the Federation of Baao Women, who observed the intra- and interspecific diversity of traditional vegetable crops successfully grown in the Bicol region.
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