TALAVERA, Nueva Ecija – Residents of this first-class Nueva Ecija municipality were encouraged on Tuesday to plant in boxes three of Filipinos’ favorite food spices — onions, ginger and garlic – for their year-round domestic supply.
The project which forms part of their officially acclaimed Gulayan Program serves as “an intervention to help households deal with the recurring issues of high prices of onions,” said Vice Mayor Nerivi Santos Martinez who established the Gulayan Program during her stint as local chief executive in 2013.
“Kasi may pagkakataon din po na ang mahal-mahal ng bawang at minsan napakahirap pa hindi tayo makabili, mahirap makahanap tapos di pa siya masarap,” Martinez said as she joined Mayor Nerito Santos, Jr. in the launch with officials from the municipal agriculture office.
She noted that red onions are pegged at P500 to P700 a kilo in markets.
“Part din siya ng Gulayan Program natin,” Martinez said, adding that vegetable planting in every available lot and corner has become a lifestyle among their people in the entire 53 villages of this town.
The town has been named “Gulayan Capital of Nueva Ecija” by virtue of a sangguniang panlalawigan resolution in the light of its consistent vegetable program which started as Gulayan sa Barangay that later expanded to Gulayan sa Paaralan.
Santos said that while the LGU distributes locally manufactured plant boxes, residents were also encouraged to use recyclable containers.
The pots, recycled from plastics collected from households through machines put up by the LGU, measure one square foot each and can be planted up to nine onion stocks or six of garlic and four of ginger.
The LGU, through the municipal agriculture office, will provide seedlings for the households, according to Santos.
Santos noted that Barangay Dimasalang Norte here was recently adjudged champion in the regional Gulayan tilt of Central Luzon, a testimony to their sustained effort in promoting clean and green as well as for its nutrition program.
“Kung may tanim tayo sa bawat bahay ay hindi tayo mahihirapan kahit magmahal ang presyo,” Santos stressed.
Flordeliza Cuizon, acting municipal agriculturist, said the project also provides for use of organically produced onion bulbs and garlic.
“Sigurado po tayo dun dahil tayo ang nagtanim,” Cuizon said.
At least 500 hectares in this municipality are planted to onions but the harvest is expected to start only in February, said Cuizon.
Farmers, she said, are actually hoping to somehow get a part of “good” prices.
