Celebrating indigenous and local farmers on World Food Day 2022!
Leaving no one behind, celebrating culture and diversity, celebrating environmental and spiritual integrity!

Through the partnership of the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro (ACDO) and Samdhana Institute, we successfully held “Lambo Mag-Uuma!” event in celebration of World Food Day, at the Limketkai Mall 2nd level event center on October 14-16, 2022. This is also our joint activity, in solidarity with the celebration of Indigenous Peoples Month (October) in the Philippines.

In the words of participants and collaborators, we have ‘launched a movement’ for local producers, especially women and IP farmers, and have created spaces where organic farmers, Indigenous crafters, environmental advocates, students, youth, and civic and government organizations can come together, engage and exchange learnings.
At the opening program, Councilor Roger Abaday of the Cagayan de Oro City Council expressed his support to make healthy food more accessible to people, especially for those living in the city. He recognized the important role of the Higaonon tribe in the city, in agriculture and environmental protection.

Mr. Arthur Aranas, representative of the Knights of Columbus Council 17623, and JCI Cagayan de Oro representative, Mr. Bernie Daba, also expressed how our goals aligned in terms of advocating for sustainable food production and working with local and Indigenous farmers. At present, our partnership already spans from conservation activities in the Dulangan Unified Ancestral Domain to this current initiative for increasing support to local producers and increasing food security.

The series of events in the three-days celebration were: the product sales, rice palatability test, food security forum, craft demo classes, Sayawalis Song-writing competition awarding, Zumabayawan for a cause, and the Faith and Light Community program.

We also featured the AgriGive Baskets, which is an ongoing fundraising activity to increase income for local farmers, provide healthy food for families who are in need, and at the same time, to continue supporting Samdhana’s current programs for indigenous peoples’ conservation initiatives and educational assistance. As of this writing, we have initially raised PhP 74,075 or approximately around 148 veggie and fruit baskets (@P499 each). Part of these donations were from generous friends living outside of the country, and their baskets will be donated to families in need, as identified through ACDO. The AgriGive Baskets campaign will be continuing as we try to involve more local producers, especially women and Indigenous gardeners and farmers.

Lambo Mag-Uuma was made possible with the support of the following: LimKetKai Mall; Intelisoft Microcomputer Systems; Knights of Columbus Council 17623; JCI Cagayan de Oro, Cagayan de Oro Water District; MLG Advertising; Northern Mindanao Daily Source; Cagayan de Oro City Agriculture Offiice and PACERM-1 Energy Corp.

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