Awareness and Insights of Sangguniang Kabataan Chairpersons in Laoag City for Enhancing Sustainable Agriculture, Ensuring Food Security, and Promoting Climate Action

Abstract

Sustainable agriculture, food security, and climate action remain pressing developmental priorities in the Philippines, and local youth leaders occupy an increasingly prominent role in advancing these agendas at the barangay level. This study examines the awareness, insights, and futures-oriented perspectives of Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) Chairpersons in Laoag City in relation to sustainable agriculture, food security, and climate action. Anchored in Anticipatory Governance and Systems Theory, and operationalized through the Futures Triangle framework, the research explores how youth leaders navigate the interaction of future aspirations, present conditions, and historical constraints in shaping local sustainability initiatives. A descriptive quantitative research design with an embedded open-ended qualitative component was employed, involving seventy-eight (78) SK Chairpersons representing 78 of Laoag City’s 80 barangays. Data were gathered through a structured questionnaire, administered via Google Forms, measuring awareness, self-reported personal engagement, and open-ended reflections on future aspirations, present enablers, and historical constraints. Findings revealed a very high overall level of awareness (M = 4.61) and self-reported personal engagement (M = 4.68) among respondents, with climate action registering the highest composite scores, although this should be interpreted alongside the low implementation rates observed for knowledge-based programs, which may reflect social-desirability tendencies in self-report data. Notable gaps emerged in the implementation of climate change education workshops and food security initiatives, both of which lagged considerably behind environmentally oriented activities such as tree planting and community gardening. Applying the Futures Triangle to respondents’ open-ended reflections further revealed persistent tension between youth leaders’ aspirations for resilient, self-sufficient communities and structural weights such as limited resources, traditional practices, and recurring climate disruptions. The study underscores youth leadership as a critical driver of sustainability transitions and highlights the urgent need for capacity-building, knowledge-based programming, and stronger institutional support to translate high awareness into sustained, systemic action.