The Navotas city government opened a four-storey urban vertical farm at NavotaAs Homes 1-Tanza to give residents a "sufficient and sustainable" food source.
The vertical farm on a 500 square meter land is said to be the tallest in Metro Manila.
Navotas Congressman John Rey Tiangco said vertical farming maximizes the land area as Navotas is one of the smallest cities in terms of land area.
“This pandemic made us see the need for sufficient and sustainable source of food. We hope this urban vertical farm will help us provide inexpensive healthy and organic produce to our constituents,” Tiangco said in a statement Sunday.
Tiangco and Good Greens and Co. president Simon Villalon led the opening of the vertical farm Saturday, October 24.
The farm features four tower greenhouses, the construction of which was financed by the Boy Scouts of the Philippines-Navotas and Good Greens and Co.
Good Greens and Co., a vertical farming solutions provider, will manage the farm to yield high-value and year-round crops through aeroponics, a plant-cultivation technique where the roots hang suspended in the air while nutrient solution is delivered in the form of a fine mist.
They will also teach boy scouts to plant, use their technology, and harvest.
The Navotas congressman said the Department of Agriculture has committed to contribute in the construction of eight more towers.