TWO AGRICULTURISTS THRIVE DURING THE PANDEMIC BY GROWING ORNAMENTAL AND FOOD CROPS AT HOME

THE WORLD is facing an extreme challenge brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Food security has been compromised and the stability of the world’s economy has been threatened.

- RINZO D. VALDEVIESO

While the agenda of COVID-19 is still at a sizzling point over matters being discussed on the table of our political leaders, there has also been much attention brought to the promotion and practice of agriculture, particularly growing food in one’s own space.

And that exactly is what these two women are doing outside of their professional expertise in sugarcane research.

MA’AM DORY’S BACKYARD GARDEN

Dr. Dorotea A. Delos Santos, 67, Ma’am Dory to her Sugar Regulatory Administration family, obtained both her Masters and Doctoral degrees in Agriculture at the University of the Philippines – Los Baños specializing in Crop Production and Management. For almost four years since 2007, she served as Manager III at the Regulation Department. Later, her career shifted to the Research Development and Extension Department at SRA-LGAREC where she also served as Manager III until 2011 when she retired.

For Ma’am Dory, retirement didn’t mean moving away from agriculture. In fact, one can say that she grew even closer to the land. She engaged in backyard farming at full blast last 2017, concentrating on succulent production. At the beginning of 2019, she diversified her backyard farming, planting crops such as squash, eggplant, sitaw, patola, upo, winged bean, sugar peas, papaya blue ternate and pineapple in a roughly estimated 300 square meter area.