INABANGA, Bohol, April 22 (PIA) -- After seven months of implementing a revolution inspired by a centenarian who refused to give up on farming, Inabanga held its first Utanon Summit, Soltera sa Utanon and vegetable expo at the Inabanga Gym on April 22 after securing the food for the town’s children, especially amid the drought season. 

"Developing agriculture, where Inabanga is a perceived producer, can assure full stomachs for our families and especially the children," Inabanga Mayor Jose Jono Jumamoy said.

Inabanga LGU partnered with Advancement for Rural Kids (ARK) FEEDBACK, a vegetable barter program that is implemented in the town’s 16 barangays to provide a solution to the problem of hunger in rural communities and assure people to secure their food, health, income, and a sustainable future. 

Implementing a farm for every family in the barangays, Jumamoy was inspired by centenarian Lolo Gauden of Liloan Norte, who was still active in his farm and planting cassava on a cliff when the mayor visited him.

Baul is the local term for farm, the only surefire way to get one the food supply that he eats to stretch his life, is an insanely fitting theme for the events. 

Vice Mayor Josephine Socorro Jumamoy, in her welcome remarks, stressed that the summit celebrates the one thing Inabangnons can successfully implement.

"From Lolo Gauden’s example, why can we not do it," the mayor’s challenge reverberated across the gym with 16 booths decorated with the harvests from the barangays in the project.

"After eight to nine weeks, we were able to feed 3,222 families and some 20,700 mouths all after the town engaged the barangays to start their own green revolution with the technical assistance from the local agriculture office," he said. 

Still, with some of Inabanga’s barangays being flood-prone, Jumamoy announced the popularization of floating gardens, which keeps the vegetables afloat in raft contraptions that could also be floated in the Inabanga River to save farming space.

"We continued to seek solutions to the challenge of climate change and floating gardens are our adaptations," he told guests during the event.

As to Lolo Gauden, the mayor said the old man died after the pandemic and his farms have now been taken over by the forest.

But he urged the people in the 16 barangays to sustain the baul.

The event featured a Soltera sa Utanon, where a search for the Soltera was a raging competition among candidates of the 16 barangays where the project ARK FEED BACK is implemented.

Candidates romped in vegetable embellished gowns, headdresses, and carried vegetable-inspired scepters.

After the 16 barangays can inspire the rest of the town’s 34 more barangays, the local government is readying to get the project to another set of barangay beneficiaries, Mayor Jumamoy said. (RAHC/PIA Bohol)