LGUs, private sector urged to adopt edible landscaping

EL should not be considered only as crop production because it entails a complex activity of planning, design, implementation, and maintenance, as is similarly done in conventional landscaping, according to Dela Cruz. (Pexels photo)

MANILA – Edible landscaping (EL) may just be the solution to achieve sustainable food security across the country, an official of the Climate Change Commission (CCC) said Sunday.

Albert Dela Cruz Sr., Climate Change Commissioner, urged local government units (LGUs) and the private sector to adopt EL as part of their climate action plans following his recent visit to Kalinga province to meet with local officials.

He noted that the use of technologies developed for food production that are applicable to “household-level” crop production would be advantageous in many ways.

“If most of our householders were to utilize the open space within their properties, they could benefit by having their own sources of food even at the smallest scale possible,” he said in a news release.

Dela Cruz also said that such production systems and technologies can be adopted and practiced with increased enthusiasm “when the basic tenets of landscape design become the guiding principles.”

EL should not be considered only as crop production because it entails a complex activity of planning, design, implementation, and maintenance, as is similarly done in conventional landscaping, according to Dela Cruz.

“EL can be combined with bio-intensive gardening (BIG), which is commonly used in small spaces to increase productivity. BIG is a crop production method designed to maximize the use of space and utilize the resources present in the surrounding environment. The aim is to produce safe and readily available nutritious food for the family and the community while creating an attractive and functional edible landscape and maximizing the use of all resources present in the site,” he added.

Dela Cruz said initiating EL and gardening could help the private sector utilize mechanisms provided under the Department of Agriculture’s Adaptation and Mitigation Initiative in Agriculture (AMIA), where institutional risks could be minimized in the appropriation of funds even as government investments would be protected as well.

“Through AMIA, development programs, projects, and approaches could be adjusted to address climate change risks and this would not only benefit those who will invest in this new concept of edible landscaping and gardening but the whole country as well,” he said.

He explained that sources of food and production centers are relatively far from target populations, which causes additional concern with regard to product quality and increasing health hazards because of the need to add chemicals to prolong the postharvest life of produce.

“Depressed communities in urban areas are the most vulnerable to problems of food availability. Within these zones, no tillable land is readily available and food commonly comes from external sources. These increasing concerns about food availability provide good reason for the government and the public to search for the solutions needed to produce safe and readily available food,” he said.

Currently, Dela Cruz is in the process of authoring and sponsoring a climate change policy for all public sectors to utilize a portion of their public funds to make use of edible landscaping and gardening instead of ornamental plants.

EL is an innovative concept that could promote green and edible vegetation and through it, various principles of landscape design are combined with existing technologies for small-scale crop and utilizes vegetables, herbs, and fruit crops as major softscape materials to substitute for the ornamental plants commonly used in conventional landscaping.

To date, EL is being intensively promoted in the Philippines and is open for further development to cater for a wider scope of crop production.

In his inaugural State of the Nation Address in July 2022, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. said food as “not just a trade commodity but is an existential imperative and one that is moral.”

“Without (food), people weaken and die; societies come apart. It is more than a livelihood; it is an existential imperative and a moral one. Agriculture damaged and diminished by unfair competition will have a harder time, or will have no prospects at all, of recovering.” Marcos said.