Food Festivals In The City – Let Us All Drink To All That!

Images: "Food Festival" from Stratforward (google.com), but which I have elongated upward and narrowed sideward; the other is a direct cut from a Facebook post of my nephew Anthony Hilario Sindayen, dated 25 April 2019, on the occasion of Mnl Beer Festwith the announcement that it was "The Biggest BeerFest in the Philippines." It was held in Manila just last month, 24 April 2019. The son of my sister Brillita and Melanio, he and partner have the Marc & Tony's local craft beer. 

Food and beer festivals are what I am thinking of when I'm reading William Dar's column of today, "Urban Agriculture Should Be Taken Seriously," 30 May 2019, Manila Times, manilatimes.net). He says, "Urban and peri-urban agriculture… is becoming a viable option to help secure the food needs of urban communities."

Urban agriculture. I have not heard of it being practiced in the Philippines, not even anywhere in Metro Manila. Because we always think of wide spaces when we think of agriculture, in hectares of land in the open field. I rather think that is the reason why we have not graduated from food production in the countryside to food production in the city – we think there are no rooms available.

Next, Mr Dar says:

I also chanced upon a (blogpost) titled "Why urban farms and gardens should rule the agriculture scene," dated April 30, 2019, which stated that among the advantages of urban farming are less fuel spent for delivering food to consumers and produce being more healthy for human consumption, like not being treated with chemicals.

That is to say, if we want healthy foods in the city, let us grow food gardens!

From Mr Dar's column along with his FAO notes, I now list these as blessings of the growing of food in the city:

(1) Shorter waiting. He says, "Vegetables are highly recommended since they can be grown over a shorter period." They have a short production cycle of 60 days.

(2) More productive. The FAO says urban gardens can be 15 times more productive than farms in the countryside.

(3) More employment with less space. "The FAO also states that urban agriculture provides employment and incomes for poor women and other disadvantaged groups… citing that a 100-sqm of horticulture can generate one job in production, input supply, marketing and value addition."

(4) More income. The FAO points out that urban gardeners are close to their markets so there is no need for middlemen – a penny saved is a penny earned.

(5) Less waste of space. The FAO says urban gardeners can use unused city spaces. I say that will make the urban landscape greener. And cooler.

To encourage urban gardens, I'm thinking of food festivals in the city sponsored by the city government, or private sector, or both. The greening of the city would be joy for all.

So, I go back to my proposal of the holding of food and beer festivals in the city to celebrate life.
Let's all drink to that!
Make mine beer.517