St Paul Dumaguete Promotes Sustainable Organic Farming

st paul university dumaguete integrated and sustainable farm

We were fortunate to be granted a chance to visit again the St Paul University Dumaguete (SPUD) Integrated and Sustainable Farm in Calo, Dumaguete City during our recent trip there. It has been six months since we were there and I was surprised to see a lot of amazing changes.

The farm is a product and offshoot of Sr Joseline Lasala’s vision of integrating and realizing SPUD’s principles on ecology. It was further strengthened when the new SPUD President was installed. Sr Lucilla Baldado, a passionate farmer herself pushed for the aggressive development of their farm in Calo and she envisions it to be as a model farm where their students and other farmers can learn. She even talked about developing the congregation’s other property in Amlan (also in Dumaguete) into another integrated farm which will include aquaculture.

The President is likewise planning an agribusiness course offering in the near future. This will be an addition to the university’s existing programs in business management and entrepreneurship. The agribusiness offering is an exciting prospect to attract more young people into farming as an attractive business enterprise.The farm will serve as an excellent laboratory for practical and hands-on learning.

The farm in Calo straddles about 4 hectares of fertile soil with a stream flowing though the boundaries. Water for irrigation is never a problem because of the stream. They plan to install a ram-type pump that will bring the water to a storage tank and from there feed water through an irrigation setup that will reach a wider area.

The Calo farm is planted to various vegetables that are commonly found in households. Vegetables include tomatoes, okra, eggplants, ampalaya and many more. Culinary and medicinal herbs also dot the property. Sweet corn is planted under coconut trees to maximize every available space.

The plants are fertilized and protected using natural farming methods adapted from existing farms that are practicing the same. Joseph Nihial (a BS Agriculture graduate), the farm supervisor has been concocting solutions derived from natural mixtures such as fermented fruit juice (FFJ), fermented plant juice (FPJ), EMs and vermicast. Other farm workers (Julius, Rommel and Micael) help Joseph in the maintenance of the farm.

The farm uses the vermicast from vermibeds made of indigenous bamboo materials and fed with a mixture of biodegradable materials and manure from the farm animals. Joseph even showed us the vermicast and the worms (African Night Crawlers) in the bed. They plan on adding more vermibeds and buying a chipper to chop more bio-materials.

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The farm has also introduced more livestock which includes ducks, goats, chicken and hogs. The animals are fed with a fermented mix of barley, coconut meal among others. They will be using natural bedding in the livestock pens. The bedding is a mixture of sandy loam soil, salt and sawdust filled in the 1 meter deep pen. The animal droppings are scraped from the surface everyday and the bedding is replenished with the same mixture to maintain the depth. This setup emits no foul odor and the collected animal droppings are further decomposed for use later as fertilizer.

The livestock was indeed fun to watch with the ducks wading in the nearby stream bounded by bamboo fences to contain them. The chicken were just freely roaming on the property. Sr Lucilla even brought some of their recently acquired goats (Anglo-Nubian) near the sisters’ convent in the SPUD campus so she can see them more often.

Among the structures present in the farm are the open-type classrooms which are used for lectures, a piggery, a staff house, a composting toilet and a small seedling nursery. The structure that will house the quails (pugo) is already in place.

It was indeed fun to visit the farm and from what I can see, more exciting changes are to come.

Our deepest gratitude to the St Paul of Chartres Sisters in Dumaguete for graciously welcoming us and showering us with love and care throughout our stay. Special thanks to Sr. Lucilla, Sr Joseline, Sr. Luz, Sr Pura – our golf cart driver and Sr Nilda who introduced us to their congregation in Dumaguete. Sr Nilda was a classmate of our friend Candice De Ausen in their PhD classes. She has now moved to St Paul Quezon City.