The Department of Agriculture-Bicol (DA-5) is encouraging households to grow vegetables in their backyards to help ease supply constraints and food price pressures due to the severe El Niño.

In an interview on Friday, DA-5 spokesperson Lovella Guarin said the agency has been distributing vegetable seeds since the start of the year to encourage families to establish home gardens and reduce their dependence on purchased vegetables.

“We have long been campaigning for people to plant vegetables in their backyards,” she said.

She said the initiative helps households save on food expenses, as families can harvest vegetables from their own backyards instead of buying them from markets.

However, the region’s vegetable supply remains limited due to drought conditions that started during the first quarter of the year. Supplies from other regions help augment local production.

Guarin said high-value crops incurred the largest damage from January to June, while rice production suffered the biggest losses from June to September.

“Even in Albay, we have vegetable plantations, and some of our produce, such as ampalaya, patola and squash, are transported to Manila,” she said.

The DA also encourages farmers to plant alternative crops that need less water, such as camote.

NFA intensifies palay procurement

Meanwhile, the National Food Authority (NFA), meanwhile, is intensifying palay (unhusked rice) procurement to support farmers and replenish government buffer stocks.

“Since it is now the harvest season, we have deployed almost all our procurement teams to buy palay and replenish our buffer stocks in preparation for calamities,” NFA-5 Assistant Regional Manager Julia Llenaresas said.

She said the procurement program also aims to support farmers dealing with the effects of drought through the agency’s buying prices for clean and dry palay.

The current palay buying price in Albay is PHP28 per kilogram; Camarines Sur and Camarines, PHP28 per kg; Catanduanes, PHP27; and in Sorsogon and Masbate, PHP27 per kg.

“We encourage our farmers to continue delivering their harvest to the NFA because our buying prices are high,” Llenaresas said.

She added that the agency has expanded its storage capacity to accommodate more palay deliveries, and renting privately owned warehouses.

“We now have 15 warehouses throughout the region, including eight large warehouses in Camarines Sur,” she said. (PNA)