A modern, food-producing urban farm-slash-agricultural center will soon rise in Pasig City with the help of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and youth organization RE-TERRA.

In particular, the DA said it intends to establish a modern urban farm that will also feature an agricultural center where city farmers can explore ways to grow their livelihood.

RE-TERRA, which bats for agricultural development in the metropolis, said it wants cities to become suppliers of food, generate livelihood, and create green architecture amid the dense urban landscape.

Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto has provided three expository sites within the city for the project.

They will be using the winning architectural designs from the RE-TERRA 2021, a design competition that calls on architects to re-imagine an existing site in Pasig City into a green, food-producing urban farm-center.

"We need to make use of the most modern technology that we have to increase productivity. In urban agriculture, we train more urban gardeners and the like because we need to level up productivity ten times,” DA Secretary William Dar said.

“Modern technologies are there. But we are not using them optimally to bring in the level of productivity that we need. In urban agriculture, we are looking at the RE-TERRA project as a major factor in producing the fruits and vegetables needed in the metropolis by blending in urban landscape with green agriculture—this is the kind of city that we want to see,” Dar added.

RE-TERRA founder and architect Kathleen Encorporado, on the other hand, said they "aspire to connect ideas and expertise focusing on issue food production and bring this solution to the decision-makers of country".

This would help the country "achieve food security and consequently, healthy and affordable food for every Filipino".

She noted that before the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, there were about two million families that experienced urban hunger in Metro Manila. It more than doubled to 4.2 million during the height of the pandemic in 2020.

“We architects are the shapers of the city. We have the power to affect the lives of the city folks with the development that we design and create. RE-TERRA is a link to the gap. On one hand, you have the Filipinos suffering from hunger, and on another, the thousands of experts streaming with innovative ideas,” Encorporado said.

Sotto expressed happiness over the chance to collaborate with both DA and RE-TERRA for the project.

"The City of Pasig hopes that through this initiative, we will ignite the fire among the youth to be more involved in making agriculture more modern and well-adept with the emerging technologies and innovations of our times," he said.

Dar underscored the need to replicate the RE-TERRA project in other parts of the metropolis to ensure that the endeavor becomes a success.