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ASSESSING PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF URBAN AGRICULTURE IN CEBU CITY, PHILIPPINES: TOWARDS DEVELOPING ACTION PLANS

Background and Purpose: Urban agriculture (UA) has become an even more attractive option for food security and safety brought by the spread of COVID-19 which causes global health crisis. However, studies examining the perceived values, challenges, and needs towards urban agriculture are very limited and this does not exempt even the context of Cebu City in the Philippines. In this regard, this study aimed to assess the problems and prospects concerning urban agriculture in the aforementioned City. The purposes are to propose action plans and offer insights in designing and implementing food and agricultural programs and policies in the planned participatory action research (PAR) for sustainable urban agriculture. Methodology: This study used Kemmis and McTaggart’s (1988) Model of Action Research. The use of this research method is an essential approach towards constructing sustainable developments of urban agricultural systems. However, only the planning stage was accomplished in this phase of action research of which it employed sequential explanatory research design. There were 509 household representatives in this stage of the study who participated in an online survey, 217 and 292 were from the north district and south district, respectively. Subsequently, each district had five representatives who were subjected to interviews to explain the quantitative results. Findings: Results indicate that Cebuanos positively perceives the social, economic, health, environmental, and aesthetic values of urban agriculture. However, the presence of urban agriculture in the metropolitan is only from moderate to nonexistent due to lack of space or designated area. In Journal of Nusantara Studies 2022, Vol 7(1) 264-291 ISSN 0127-9386 (Online) http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol7iss1pp264-291 265 addition, the participants disclosed a lack of training and capital or funding, thus further disengaging them from adopting urban agriculture. Nonetheless, the majority (n=463) expressed willingness to be trained in urban agriculture if given the opportunity. Contributions: This study provides key points as to how urban agriculture can be promoted. These include designating some portions of public and privately unused lands as “urban agriculture areas”. In addition, financing institutions may also allocate small subsidies for marginally low-income families as their starting capital for urban agriculture activities. Finally, universities, non-government, and government agencies in the agriculture sector may train Cebuanos in backyard and rooftop gardening being the widely accepted urban agriculture form.

development in their educational practices in the context or situation where they practice (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005). However, in the present study, only the planning stage was yet initiated and reported for two reasons. First, it involved a large number of sample size as both districts of the metropolitan were used as the sampling site. Second, depending on the results, the proposed actions at the end of planning stage will not be implemented simultaneously to the whole Cebu City. Rather, one district may be focused first before the other due to the small number of researchers against the target beneficiaries.
The planning stage is characterized by collaborative collection of information regarding the problem of focus. In this AR, the information gathered during the preliminary assessment were the perceived values, challenges, and needs towards UA of marginalized sectors in the city. Hence, the research design, environment, participants, instruments, data gathering procedure and data analysis are subsequently indicated to show how the information were collected and analyzed. On the basis of these information from the preliminary assessment and as informed by the literature, proposed action plans are indicated in the final portion of this report in preparation for the acting stage of AR.

METHODOLOGY
This study is a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design (quanQUAL). For quantitative method part, it employed cross-sectional, descriptive design (Type 2) based on the typologies proposed by Johnson (2001). The participants were grouped according to the political district (i.e., north and south) where they belong; hence, the study is classified cross-sectional. Then, they were asked to participate in an online survey to evaluate their perceptions on health, environmental and aesthetic, economic, and social values of UA, intentions of adopting UA, preferred urban agricultural method, intended produce, and perceived challenges when adopting UA activities. For the qualitative method, multiple case studies were used to provide an in-depth description and support the quantitative findings as a feature of mixed-methods research and to execute data polyangulation. The qualitative data were obtained through phone interviews and messaging applications.

Research Context and Participants
This study was conducted in Cebu City, a first-class, highly urbanized city in Cebu Province.
It is the fifth densely populated metropolitan in the Philippines and most populated in the Visayan region, making it a viable environment for introducing UA project. All domains or barangays in the city were involved in the preliminary survey to determine empirically which group of people or domain have desirable perceptions, submit for, and critically need an UA program. However, this study employed a voluntary sampling design due to travel restrictions caused by the pandemic of which the survey was done online. The voluntary sampling is a new non-probability sampling technique where final samples were drawn from the potential participants who are willing and qualified to participate in the study (Alvi, 2016). In particular, the target participants were household heads. The combined household income which each household head is coming from is less than the official poverty threshold of 10,481.00 Php monthly or roughly 207 US Dollars. In other words, these participants are from marginalized sector of the community because the planned UA program is intended for them. There were 509 household heads who responded in the study of which 217 were from the North district and 292 were from the south district of Cebu. Refer to Table 1 for the combined distribution of these household respondents when grouped according to different socio-demographic profiles. Subsequently, each district had five representatives who were subjected to interviews to build up or justify the quantitative results. They were selected via voluntary sampling provided the diverse socio-demographic profiles were achieved. The profiles of these representatives are reflected in Table 2. Journal of Nusantara Studies 2022, Vol 7(1)

Data Gathering Procedure
The research team sent informed consent and survey questionnaire written in Cebuano dialect to prospect participants. The informed consent contained the statement of purpose, background, procedures, risks and discomfort, confidentiality, and benefits of research for participants' perusal and approval. If approved, the participants responded to the enclosed questionnaire, but they were told not to indicate their names.

Research Instruments and Data Analysis
The general questionnaire is divided into four parts: (a) socio-demographic profile, (b) perceptions on UA, (c) community profile on UA, and (d) Cebu City residents' propensity to venture in UA. The first part of the survey questionnaire obtained information on participants' socio-demographic information such as sex, age, the domain where residing, marital status, educational attainment, occupation status, and no. of members in the house. The second part examined participants' perceptions on the values of UA in terms of social, economic, health, environmental and aesthetic as proposed by Surls et al. (2014). The scale is named PVUA of which it contained 32 items unevenly distributed into four perception areas. Each item was designed to be rated on a five-point Likert scale (5 = strongly disagree, 4 = disagree, 3 = undecided, 2 = agree, and 1 = strongly agree). The validity of this scale was established through face, content, construct, and criterion validation while reliability was established by calculating Cronbach's alpha. The Aiken's Validity Indices of all items range from 0.8 to 1.00, indicating all items passed content validity. For Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), the total percentage of variance explained by the four factors indicated above is 83.849. Meanwhile, for Confirmatory Factor Analysis, the resulting values for goodness-of-fit indices (GFIs) are reported in another publication but the values indicate reasonable to good model-data fit. Thus, these provide confirmatory evidence for the factor structure generated during EFA. In terms of test for correlation as other evidences of construct and criterion validity, all items were statistically significant at the p < 0.01 level. These may demonstrate weak construct discriminant validity correlation but these also reveal criterion concurrent validity. The conceptual distinctions of each factor is one of the reasons for retaining them all in the scale although the correlations coefficients are all strong. Finally, the scale reliability as determined by Cronbach's alpha ranges from 0.957 to 0.980 within subscales and .991 for the entire scale.
These results indicate that the scale has ideal stability. The third part of the questionnaire examined the community profile on UA. Specifically, it described the presence of UA, observed methods of UA practiced in the community, UA produce of the community, and interviews were examined and eventually assigned to any of the area above which these could support with.

Social Values
As shown in Table 3, the mean ratings to all items in social values of UA are above the midpoint value for both districts, interpreted as an indication of participants' agreement to all 11 items.
In general, the participants seemed to agree that UA has social relevance to their lives, specifically on social relationships and interactions among members of the community and the environment they are collectively building.  Gardening allows me to interact with my neighbors who share the same interest as me. We call ourselves "plantito" or "plantita." With this agricultural activity, we get to bond and have recreation in our common time.
(  (n=143), an avenue for leisure or recreational activity (n=186), and providing activity for family (n=239). Also, a participant emphasized that the social value of UA is not limited to promoting interaction but could even lead to the reduction of crimes, specifically in abandoned spaces, which are usually haven for crimes, if converted into greened lots. This was a finding earlier indicated in the study of Garvin, Cannuscio, and Branas (2012).

Economic Values
In terms of economic values of UA, Table 4 shows the mean ratings to all nine items for both districts. All are still above mean which indicates participants' agreement to all items. In other words, UA is viewed by them to boost the economic success and activities of the community through creating jobs and incubating new business trends.  Eventually, these will have profound impacts on improving their savings, income, and lifestyles. As also shown in Figures 4a and 4b, some of their intentions if they will engage with UA include generating income (n=316) and minimizing expenditures for food (n=234). These intentions may be grounded on their perceptions that UA may improve their local economy.
Such positive perceptions are also congruent with their ideas on the economic role and significance of UA as revealed in the interview, e.g. The more produce of fruits and vegetables we have in the community, the more we will likely reach the market. If that is so, then the price will likely be very low because of competition. If we understand the law of demand and

Health Values
Concerning the health values of UA, there are no changes with the agreement of the participants in all seven items for both districts as shown in Table 5. The mean scores for all seven items are above the midpoint. These results indicate that participants seemed to agree that UA provides people access to safe and nutritious foods, improves or promotes physical, emotional, and mental well-being, and leads to food and health literacy. In this regard, Figures 4a and 4b reveal self-therapy, relaxation, calmness (n=323), and exercise (n=217)  Urban gardening ensures healthy living because the food we consume is homegrown and free from synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides.
(Participant C -South District) The plants that surround us can give us fresh air for the proper functioning of our body. We may even talk to plants to share our problems, although they do not respond but the idea that we can release the confines of our thoughts and emotions through them can ease the burden of what we think and feel.
(Participant D -South District) Some participants, who previously lived in the countryside, even disclosed during the interview that they are missing their laidback and healthy lifestyles before. Some of them prefer to go back there once they retire from work to do gardening again as it was part of their daily activities growing up. They are missing the fresh foods and air they get from it.

Environmental and Aesthetic Values
Finally, as to the environmental and aesthetic values of UA, the agreement of participants remains the same. Table 6 shows that the mean rating scores for all items for both districts are still above the midpoint, indicating a positive agreement that UA brings attractiveness or aesthetic quality to urban spaces. These results are supported by the following transcripts obtained during interviews, e.g.   The participants agree that UA mitigates waste or pollution and prevents the accumulation of synthetic residues from fertilizer, pest, and herb controls. They narrated the following: Pollution in any form is present in urban areas, such as air, soil, and noise pollution. Green spaces help us improve the climate within the city by increasing the amount of moisture while reducing temperature. We know very well that the canopies of the trees are good shades while their leaves absorb dust and greenhouse gases which contributes to global warming (Participant C -South District).
I am part of an organization in our barangay, which is into the beautification of public places. In this regard, we do landscaping of which we use different varieties of plants and collect materials such as used tires, containers, and cans. We do not just collect these materials, but we exchange them with rice.
Since then, I notice that litters are very minimal. We get to beautify the public places while preventing garbage from being dumped over the streets.

(Participant B -South District)
We do not apply synthetic materials to our plants. Instead, we use rice water for our edible and herbal plants while urine for our ornaments and cut flowers as fertilizer. (Participant B -North District) In summary, Table 7 shows the descriptive results whereby no difference in participants' perceptions of UA's social, economic, health, and environmental and aesthetic values are observed. However, these mean scores do not actually inform us whether there is no significant areas of UA may indicate positive implications on ease in cultivating their love for UA and facilitating them to engage in programs and policy relating to UA.

Profile and Perceived Challenges in Adopting Urban Agriculture in Cebu City
To better understand the profile or state of urban agriculture in Cebu City, the participants were asked several questions, which results are reflected in Figure 2.

Propensity or Perceived Needs in Adopting Urban Agriculture in Cebu City
To better understand Cebuanos acceptance of UA and whether they perceive it as predominantly positive or negative activity, they were asked to answer several questions, which results are shown in Figures 4a and 4b When participants were asked about their intended produce if they will venture in UA, vegetables and fruits top the list for both districts. Then, herbal plants and cut flowers follow.
Their intended produce may be explained by their primary intentions such as food resources, income generation, self-therapy, relaxation, and calmness. However, access to land, capital, lack of training, access to water, and soil contamination are their perceived barriers that may interrupt them from adopting backyard gardening and cultivating intended produce. These are

CONCLUSION AND PROPOSED ACTION PLANS
Cebuanos are in consensus that UA has social, economic, health, environmental, and aesthetic values. However, the majority observed that its presence in the metropolitan is from moderate to nonexistent primarily due to inadequate access to land or space/zoning. Arable lands are gradually transformed into business hubs or offices to pave the way for the City's ongoing and expanding industrial revolution. Also, Cebuanos perceived the lack of training and capital or funding as secondary barriers in their engagement to UA. Nonetheless, 91 percent of 509 respondents expressed willingness to be trained in UA if given the opportunity. They are interested primarily in the area of backyard gardening, although access to land or space is their observed and anticipated barrier. In particular, they intend to plant vegetables, fruits, herbal plants, and cut flowers. These intended harvests can be explained by their intentions if they will engage in UA, which are as follows: as food resources, to generate income, to relax, and experience calmness and self-therapy. In view of these, some action plans are recommended below.
For the lack of access to land or space, the following action plans are proposed: i) The local government may designate privately owned or vacant and unused lands as "UA areas" (UAA). The owner of these UAAs may then apply for tax incentives to the properties while the lands are used. This policy may limit landowners from encouraging them to sell their unused properties. Instead, the marginalized families without access to lands may be given the benefit of cultivating these lands; ii) In the same manner, a portion of public lands where government institutions are established such as schools or universities, parks, offices, and others may be assigned as "UA areas." The government and interested individuals may enter into a memorandum of agreement that vacant spaces of the government institutions may be used for agricultural activities for a certain period. This initiative can also benefit the government because its institutions are mandated to provide extension programs for the community; iii) Housing loans may be provided to families who do not own house and lot. The spare space may be used to cultivate vegetables, fruits, cut flowers, and herbal plants.
For most respondents, the lack of capital is also a major bottleneck that restrains them to engage, maintain, and expand agricultural activities. Thus, affordable food production in the city remains a distant goal. Several factors may explain the lack of capital. Firstly, the salary received by a particular family is primarily allocated for basic needs, and engaging to UA may already be a luxury on their end. Secondly, UA is not legalized or can be considered as informal. Thus, both government and private financing institutions are reluctant to grant loans to individuals who intend to engage in UA. Thirdly, applying for loans require collateral, a business plan, and even a feasibility study. In this regard, financing institutions may allocate small amounts of UA subsidies that only marginally low-income families can benefit if loans cannot be granted.
For lack of training and problem regarding soil contamination, the following action plans are suggested: i) Universities, non-government organizations, and government agencies in-charge in the agriculture sector may form committees whose task is to train them in backyard gardening. As revealed in this study, backyard gardening is the most intended form UA which Cebuanos prefer to venture with of which their intended produce are vegetables, fruits, cut flowers, and herbal plants. This training should also empower them to become agriculturists in their own right, meaning they will be trained to think and act scientifically in their gardening; ii) Rooftop gardening may also be introduced if there are no available lands and contaminated lands because their intended harvests can also be cultivated on rooftops. However, these individuals need to be trained properly to cultivate plants in this area because they deal extra physical stressors that could affect their growing conditions.