Digos City, PH – Rising Sun garden shop has good organically grown tomato crop – 31 Dec 2022

The Rising Sun garden shop knows of the urgent need for a more sustainable and ecological approach to growing food, and has produced many innovative ideas. One of them is Better Lives and its partners venture to assist families on their path to sustainability. They build quality solutions for the root causes of challenges that families face on their path, and their fundamental solution is the Food Always in The Home (FAITH) organic vegetable garden.

The FAITH garden’s organic approach is important because the industrialization of the agricultural sector has increased the chemical burden on natural ecosystems. Pesticides and agrochemicals are used on both agricultural lands and family gardens. However, they can cause negative health and environmental effects, so their side effects can be an important environmental health risk factor. Rey of the Peaksneng Thormacheat garden shop says “it is more obvious than ever that our community needs the implementation of a new agricultural concept regarding food production, which is safer for man, animals and the environment.”

Rey has a brother who is a farmer in Mindanao, Philippines, who runs their small family farm. His brother grew up in an environment where their method of farming was usually depending on chemicals. As a brother, Rey is worried about his brother’s health and the environmental impact of continued use of the chemical way of farming. Rey says “I feel that I have a great responsibility for the knowledge I can pass on to my brothers and neighbors on how to take care the environment. I want to educate the people and the new generation about how important it is to protect our environment. With this in mind, I had the privilege during my short vacation in Philippines to re-introduce the FAITH garden system back to its place of origin. The FAITH garden idea was originated in my province by American and Filipino missionaries.

Slowly switching to organic farming shows some amazing progress, Rey says “my brother immediately noticed the remarkable result and benefits of compost for his cucumber and tomatoes. Out of curiosity, he started both a FAITH and market garden. Both produce plenty of vegetables and he is successfully earning a good profit. Previously, he had been typically growing corn, fruits such as banana and durians, and vegetables. He now tells me that he feels happiest when growing tomatoes and cucumbers as they grow faster and better than other plants.”

Rey’s brother says “I am very grateful to my bother for coming from Cambodia to mentor us about the right plants for us to grow, like cucumbers and tomatoes, because they now grow at double yield compared to my previous experience. He recalled that other vegetables and fruits in his home garden did not give such high yields and constantly provided a range of challenges, including frequent pests and disease on the plants. His personal challenge has been lack of knowledge about how to care for and maintain such diverse crops, and especially important was not knowing the right plants and seeds to grow.”