The Department of Agriculture (DA) has urged those farming small parcels of land, including backyard farmers, to be more productive because they play a key role in establishing the country’s food security.

In an interview on Tuesday, Milo delos Reyes, the DA’s regional executive director in Calabarzon, said farmers in the five-province region should grow most of the food they consume to become less dependent on store-bought groceries.

He said gaining food independence means farmers must learn to diversify their crops to make enough money to buy their other nutritional needs.

The DA official added that most of the farmers in the region only till small areas of land, and the income is often insufficient to sustain a family.

“If your problem is that your farm is small, you need to diversify crops, not just one. You may be farming, but you ride a tricycle, you drive a jeep, you work as a carpenter to survive,” he said.

The DA official said Calabarzon farmers must plant rice, vegetables, bananas, and other vegetables instead of buying from the market for their family consumption.

While de los Reyes acknowledges technology as a new means to learn farming through books, radios, televisions, and YouTube, actual farming is still the best way to learn.

“You have to get your feet wet in the mud to be called a farmer,” he said as he underscored the importance of organizing the farmers in the region for the government to extend their help through the cooperatives.

“There are two levels of food security, there is household food security and national food security. Prioritize your food security at home, know your needs at home,” he said.

“In national food security, this is where those regions that produce pork or chicken, while there are regions that produce rice and corn; later, we exchange within the Philippines,” he added.

Delos Reyes said there is nothing wrong with importation, as other countries also import from the Philippines, and this is referred to as “global food security”.

“Food security, according to experts, is something that can be produced internally and imported,” delos Reyes said. (PNA)