TAGUDIN, Ilocos Sur, May 16 (April M. Bravo, PIA Ilocos Sur) – As families stay in their respective homes during the community quarantine due to the threats of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the local government here promotes backyard gardening to help ensure that households will have their own source of food in the coming days.

The local government unit (LGU) of Tagudin, through the Municipal Agriculture Office and the Municipal Nutrition Action Office, launched last Friday, May 15, the GLOW Tagudin – a “grow your own food” backyard gardening activity which primarily aims to ensure food security.

Clariza Jane Carganilla, municipal nutrition action officer of LGU-Tagudin, said, "This nutrition-sensitive intervention also helps vulnerable families by growing organic nutritious vegetables or glow foods to boost the immunity and prevent malnutrition posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

She said that free vegetable seeds such as pechay, eggplant, squash, string beans and lady finger were distributed to the identified 20 household-beneficiaries in the 16 barangays of Tagudin.

“Family-beneficiaries in the remaining 27 barangays of the municipality will receive their free vegetable seeds next week,” she told the Philippine Information Agency (PIA).

Aside from GLOW Tagudin, Carganilla said that the LGU has initiated earlier the “Organikong Gulayan sa Barangays” which are very useful during this time as they become the source of food serve for the frontliners and benefits the malnourished children and poor families as well.

She said the “Organikong Gulayan sa Barangays,” being the community garden, will also be provided with the same variety of vegetable seeds given to the beneficiaries of the GLOW Tagudin project.

“The GLOW Tagudin project is just the first wave and we will level it up,” she added.

Meanwhile, in the Laging Handa Network Briefing on Friday, Basilan Governor Hadjiman Salliman shared that to address food security, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Agrarian Reform (MAFAR) gave out seeds and before the lock down, the provincial government prepared and procured seedlings for the food security program in coordination with farms.

“Sa food security, particularly pagtatanim talaga sa vegetables, farming ng iba-ibang pagkain, ‘yon ang tinututukan ng provincial government para nang sa ganun ay maging stable at hindi dependent sa imported na mga pagkain galing sa iba’t ibang lugar, kundi kayang i-sustain ang pangangailangan ng Basilan,” Salliman said.

The Laging Handa Network Briefing airs daily from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. at the Radyo Pilipinas hosted by Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Martin Andanar.

The program can be viewed at PIA’s regional and provincial Facebook pages around the country. (JCR/AMB/PIA Ilocos Sur)