Introduction to FAITH (Food Always In The Home) Gardening and Natural Farming

Speaker Bio: Dennis J. Tungol is the co-founder and the Training Director of SEED Project – Asia, Phil. Inc. and at the same time the assistant Pastor of JCTV in Pureza, Manila.  He finished his Bachelor’s Degree in Agriculture and majored in Entomology, with a minor in Pathology, at the Gregorio Araneta University.  He also earned Diploma in Agriculture, major in Pest Management at the University of the Philippines, Los Banos, UPLB Laguna.  He worked in Bureau of Soils as Soil Technician in 1977-1978 and in Bureau of Agricultural Extension as Pest Management Technologist in 1980-1987.  He worked overseas in the Ministry of Agriculture and Water, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as Agricultural Technologist from 1987 to 1999.

He came back to Philippines and has been involved in missions since.  In 2000 he joined AMNET (Asia Missions Network) and work as the Community organizing and development staff in depressed areas of Metro Manila and Luzon.  He was also a trainer on Agriculture and Evangelism.  He traveled to Myanmar, Nepal and Thailand.  In 2001, he joined TNO (Tribes and Nations Outreach) and he is the Senior Trainer for FAITH (Food Always In The Home) Gardening and Natural Farming (FGNF) and has traveled to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, China, Nepal, Bangladesh, and India.  He also helped develop model gardens in Eastern Samar, Leyte, Sorsogon, Quezon Province, Laguna, Rizal, La Union ,and Benguet and conducted trainings for churches, para-churches and other non-christian groups.

Abstract:  FAITH (Food always In The Home) Gardening is a great tool for food sufficiency and an aid to both physical and spiritual needs of a family.  With the rising number of population, there is also a rising need for food supply.  The relatively high cost of food, especially for organic products, are hardly affordable by the majority of poor.  FAITH Gardening helps people from both urban and rural communities in order to augment their daily food requirements.  It is a technique that does not require large amounts of space, but in a limited space people can grow vegetables in containers and  suing hydroponics. In 150 square meters of land when planted with vegetables, a family of 6 can have at least 50% of their daily food requirements the whole year round.  On this limited space, they can have vegetables, meat, eggs, fish, and herbs. 

Organic gardening, natural farming, herb identification, and preparation for simple ailments, water filtration, fish culture, mushroom culture, azolla culture, odorless swine and poultry production, and bee culture are some of the technologies we are offering. With FAITH Gardening we address the issues of malnutrition, economic alleviation, and being part of helping the country to fulfill its dream in becoming sufficient in food.