PH School & Home Gardens – How Good Are They? ComDev Vs DevCom Views

The report, "The School-Plus-Home Gardens Project in the Philippines: A Participatory And Inclusive Model For Sustainable Development" authored by Blesilda M Calub & Co, published by SEARCA (undated), says the Gardens Project was a collaboration among SEARCA, UP Los Baños, and DepEd District of Laguna. It was piloted in 5 elementary public schools (Grade 4) in 5 towns and 1 secondary school (Grade 7) in the provincial capital. 

Selected quotes from the report:

... Today, many parents take pride of their home gardens and even volunteered in the maintenance of the school garden, which is the complete opposite of their attitude before.

Pupils showed improved knowledge in naming vegetables and classifying food items according to food groups and nutrients. They also improved their attitudes on the benefits of eating vegetables.

Separately, Frank D Gorrez, an agronomist, UPLB alumnus, and who has been a consultant of the World Bank, UNDP, FAO and ADB, including Church organizations, emailed me his 1,100-word August 2019 report of his own volunteer work, his manuscript titled "Training & Technology Transfer Systems (3TS) Concept & Implementation Guidelines (A School Agricultural Development Program). His has been "tutoring staff of Shalom Science Institute high school in both classroom and hands-on growing rainfed rice and vegetable varieties during his staggered visits in 2016, 2017 & 2018" in Banago. Balabagan, Lanao del Sur, Mindanao. He scheduled monthly activities for rice, corn, vegetables, and fruit tree crops. His 3TS concept "utilizes the school as a permanent teaching/learning venue for students by establishing garden demonstration plots for testing, evaluating, production of good and high yielding (crops)."

I will now look at those 2 different garden types with the eyes of a journalist engaged in Communication for Development, ComDev, which I invented and published in the technical journal Sylvatrop of the Forest Research Institute, FORI, when I was Editor in Chief in the late 1970s. I offered ComDev in contradistinction with Development Communication, DevCom. The difference: Dedicated, ComDev pushed communication entirely for development; detached, DevCom pushedcommunication with or withoutdevelopment as a goal.

Now then, speaking from the vantage point of ComDev, I see that the SEARCA Gardens Project and Mr Gorrez' own 3TS volunteer work are excellent initiatives for school and home gardens. However, both fall short of their avowed ultimate goal of sustainable development, which has 4 aspects: (1) technical feasibility (2) economic viability, (3) environmental soundness, and (4) social acceptability. I can see clearly that they have not addressed the issue of #2. In the main image above, part of the project's conceptual framework, read "Economics." Both initiatives do not look into the economics of such gardens, and that is unfortunate. We have to teach the gardeners costs & returns. These initiatives must make sure the gardeners get the values they added by marketing their produce directly to consumers, not merchants. Otherwise, these gardens are sustaining the lives of traders, not those of the producers! Contrarian development.

Indeed, the SEARCA Gardens Project and Gorrez' 3TS have much work left to do towards sustainable development!@517