The officials with winners of Farm Your Country initiative at the ceremony.
The Director of Public Parks Department, Mohamad Ali Al Khouri, has said that the initiative ‘Farm Your Country’ helped create importance of agriculture among youngsters.
The initiative was launched in schools by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment representative by Public Parks Department in collaboration with Al Faisal Without Borders Foundation (ALF) to educate students about the importance of agriculture and environment.
Al Khouri was speaking in an event at the headquarters of the Ministry of Municipality and Environment at Corniche yesterday to honour the winners of the competition held under the Farm Your Country initiative.
Thirteen school received gold medals out of 34 schools participated the initiative of third season during the academic year 2018-19. Eleven schools got silver medals and bronze medals went to eight schools.
Speaking to The Peninsula about the state efforts to increase the greenery across the country, Al Khouri said: “All new projects will have landscape, plants and green areas and special budget will be allocated for this purpose as per the projects.:
He said that Public Works Authority (Ashghal) is implementing the projects related to the beautification of cities and highways in collaboration with Public Parks Department.
Addressing the event, Al Khouri said that the idea of ‘Farm Your Country’ initiative is the result of a bilateral agreement between the Ministry of Municipality and the Environment and Al Faisal Without Borders Foundation as community engagement through schools to raise awareness of the importance of agriculture and afforestation and the use of the school garden to build national capability among students since childhood in a bid to boost national food security program.
He said that the initiative also aims at building skills among the students enabling them to meet the their food needs and giving them the opportunity to cultivate by their own hands for self-reliance.
He added that from this principle was the initiative of the Public Parks Department with the support of the project of planting your homeland in an integrated technical support.
“This year, 34 public, private and international schools participated in the initiative. Five agricultural engineers from the of Public Parks Department have been assigned to provide agricultural guidance and instructions directly with the assistance of two supervisors from each school at the rate of 10 students from each school,” said Al Khouri.
He pointed out that this season run for four months from September to February. “Each school planted in 30 thermocol boxes to reduce the operation cost of the project, especially in schools that do not have a school garden, and the use of alternative means in the lack of fertile land for agriculture,” said Al Khouri.
The Director of School Affairs at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Khalifah Al Derham, said that such activities are important to influence the behaviour of the students so they could take seriously the issues of farming and agriculture.
The Director General of Al Faisal Without Borders Foundation, Abdul Latif Al Yafei, said that during the current season, 340 students from all public and foreign schools attended the program. He pointed out that the efforts should be made to create these values in the hearts of children as agriculture is a part of their lives.
