DA 6 Awards 2015 Gulayan sa Paaralan Winners by James Earl E. Ogatis

DA 6 Awards 2015 

Gulayan sa Paaralan Winners

Photo above shows Regional Winners in the Search for Best School Garden who are from (left-right) Regional Focal Person on GPP Felicitas Neturada, Solyma dela Cruz (Principal of Paglaum Village Elementary School, Bacolod City - Open Field Category),  Dr. Gracia D. Malazarte (Principal of Bo. Elementary School, Lapuz, Iloilo City- Container Gardening Category), Dr. Larry Castillo (Principal III of Malonoy National High School, Dao, Capiz- Open Field Category), Marionette Quiret (Master Teacher I of Doña Monserat Lopez Memorial High School, Silay City - Container Gardening Category), DA Research Division Chief Dr. Peter S. Sobrevega, and Department of Education Regional Nutritionist Dietician Melgazar Barboza.  

The Department of Agriculture 6 awarded four participating schools for the recently concluded Search for 2015 Best Gulayan sa Paaralan Program (GPP) in Western Visayas last July 8, 2015 at Eon Centennial Hotel.

Awarded are Paglaum Village Elementary School of Bacolod City, Negros Occidental and Malonoy National High School of Dao, Capiz for the open category. Bo. Obrero Elementary School of Bo. Obrero, Iloilo City and Doña Monserat Lopez Memorial High School of Silay City, Negros Occidental are awarded for the container gardening category.

The winners are each given 30 trowels, two nursery bench, four spade, one wheel borrow, one unit garden hose, plastic net and one unit knapsack sprayer to further enhance their gulayan activities this school year.

Dir. Manuel O. Olanday, Regional Technical Director for Operations said that GPP intensifies the production of vegetables inside the school campus and provides nutritious foods among school children.

Olanday stressed that the provision of vegetable seeds, trainings, garden tools and organic fertilizer were given to start up interventions for each participating schools.

He encouraged all school principals, LGU-GPP focal persons and GPP coordinators to plant and develop household gardens in order to produce veggies right in their footsteps.

“In this way, you can pick okra, camote tops, tomatoes, saluyot and many others for free and you can be sure it is safe, fresh and nutritious.” Olanday stressed.

Felicitas M. Neturada the GPP regional coordinator said that the evaluating team from the DA, DepEd and LGU has hard time in determining the winners from the 12 schools endorsed by the six provinces.

She said that evaluation of the GPP participating schools were done as early as September of 2014 until February of 2015.

The evaluation team found the winners really adhered to the objectives of GPP which is to raise the level of public consciousness of the health and nutritional dimensions, as well as the economic benefits of establishing school and community vegetable gardens, to utilize organic gardening technologies to produce selected varieties of vegetables that will provide protein, energy, Vitamin A and iron. Vegetable products are used for the feeding program among school children while some will be sold to generate income to buy other nutritional needs.

The GPP started in June 2011 with 519 participating schools. It covered a total of 1,008 schools this SY 2015-2016. /MP