Amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the Department of Science and Technology-Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI) continued conducting training on edible landscaping to further promote homestead food production among Filipino households.
DOST Secretary Fortunato “Boy” T. de la Peña said the training was conducted by the Institute in partnership with the Edible Landscaping (EL) Team of University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) early June.
More than 50 participants attended the two-day training entitled, “Oh My Gulay! (OMG) Sa FNRI: A Step Towards Biodiversity” via Zoom conference on June 2-3.
“The training focused on the principles and practices of edible landscaping as well as its potential contribution to achieving food and nutrition security among Filipino households especially in this time of pandemic,” de la Peña said.
He noted that the training is part of the “Edible Landscaping Technology Promotion and Information Dissemination Campaign Project”, funded by the Department of Agriculture–Bureau of Agricultural Research (DA-BAR).
Edible Landscaping (EL) has been defined by the UPLB’s EL Team as “an innovative and creative food production technology that merges the science of crop production and the art of landscape designing and planning.”
In its Facebook page, the DOST-FNRI announced that the UPLB’s EL Team, led by project leader Dr. Fernando C. Sanchez Jr. visited the Institute and met with FNRI Director Dr. Imelda Angeles-Agdeppa and the Oh My Gulay! (OMG) Sa FNRI project team last week.
The EL Team turned over EL Starter Kits as a token of appreciation for the participants who attended the EL Training conducted last June 2-3.
"The EL Team also visited the OMG! Sa FNRI garden and gave suggestions on how to improve it,” the DOST-FNRI said.
The OMG! Sa FNRI is one of the DOST-FNRI’s urban garden initiatives to promote vegetable consumption among its employees, it said
“It is one of the Institute’s contributions to provide optimum nutrition for all Filipinos and to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of Zero Hunger,” the Institute added.
The FNRI said the EL Team’s visit last June 17 sought to strengthen the partnership between UPLB and DOST-FNRI.