Vegetable patches turn into vital teaching aids for kids

By Ma. Salve Duplito

Philippine Daily Inquirer

AGRIPINA D. BRILLO, 61, has spent more than half of her lifetime educating children in Nueva Ecija’s public schools.

As principal of Kaliwanagan Elementary School in San Jose City, she has never seen school-based vegetable gardens stir up any interest in this sleepy town where farming is the main source of livelihood. That has changed dramatically in the past year.

Behind the school’s two small buildings are rows of red, ripe tomatoes grown by the children themselves, with the help of their teachers and parents. There are also bottle gourds (upo), sweet and hot pepper, pechay, and eggplants. A modern nursery sits serenely on one side, with young plants sprouting from seedling trays.

The students, awed by what their hands have done, line up for gardening tools every day – eager to see their experiment through. They are excited to eat the vegetables they have grown.

Teachers come to school even on weekends to water the garden. Parents bring soil fattened by their livestock’s excretions to help out. Although the area has no perimeter fence, Brillo says, not one produce has been taken from the garden since they started.

In all the time we have been gardening, we have not really been productive. It is really different when the methods are modernized, we can see the difference,” says Brillo in Filipino.

The modern garden is a corporate social responsibility project of East-West Seed Company Inc., a Dutch-Filipino firm that sells hybrid tropical seeds locally. It also has sister companies in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, and China. One of the reasons for the community’s buy-in into Tanim sa Kinabukasan (TSK) is its active partnership with the mayor’s office, the Department of Agriculture, public elementary schools, parent-teacher associations, and the Synergeia Foundation.

“We can teach our children how to love nature and how to nurture the earth until our voices are hoarse, but that method will never equal what we can do by showing them how it should actually be done. Children learn best by experience,” says Dr. Mary Ann P. Sayoc of East-West Seed.

The method is working. Dar Dexter L. de la Cruz, an 11-year-old Grade 5 student, says his family also plants tomatoes in their farm, but he’s more excited to see the fat and healthy plants he and his classmates have grown in the school’s garden.

In the classroom, De la Cruz and his classmates learn crop and land management, preparing the land, planting, fertilization, water management, peso management, harvesting and marketing, organic farming, and nutrition. But the secret to the effective learning strategy is that the kids actually do what they learn inside the classroom. East-West Seed provides kid-friendly flipcharts and handouts that make everything fun and interesting.

When it’s harvesting time, the teachers and students sell the produce in front of the school. There are cooking contests and recipe exhibits to draw in the community. The community gets access to fresh, cheap vegetables – and the money is pooled to buy educational supplies for the children.

Organizers hope that the project will promote food security, good nutrition, and create livelihood opportunities in San Jose.