Growing vegetables as a way out of poverty

In a few weeks' time, when the country enters the typhoon season, the price of vegetables will soon shoot up. That has always been the case year after year. Traders and consumers alike have to deal with nature's wrath, as farmlands get devastated by storms.

Aside from losses caused by flash floods and strong winds, traders have to deal with the destruction of infrastructure such as highways and main roads from farms to major selling centers. Baguio, which is the major source of highland vegetables for Metro Manila, is a case in point. When typhoons hit Northern Luzon, more often than not, traders will have to wait for days (best case scenario) or weeks (worse case scenario) for roads to become passable before they can ply their produce.

This is one of the reasons why government officials encouraged the growing of vegetables in one's own backyard. And just recently, the government is not just looking at its vegetable farming project as a way of plugging the supply gap during times of calamities; the project has now become a way of out poverty for the poorest of the poor.

The Bureau of Plant Industry under the Agriculture department is now working with local officials in the "poorest of the poor" provinces to distribute seeds to indigents in the countryside. The government is hoping that by growing vegetables, poor people in rural areas can find a way to build up its food source and at the same time make money on the side by selling their surplus.