PinoyEcoFarmer

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.

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In the sleepy market of San Jose District in Puerto Princesa, Palawan lies a small garden planted to a variety of vegetables and herbs. The owner is an old lady who has spent most of her life advocating natural healing through the inclusion of fresh fruits and vegetables in the diet. Sylvia Dumo Pendon who calls her advocacy  the “Natural Diet for Disease Prevention and Life Extension” is a retired nutritionist who spent most of her professional years in Quezon City but has since moved to Palawan. She told us that moving to the province to pursue her passion of growing vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants was part of her retirement plan.

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Empower the landless and earn money from alternative farming. This is the plan for a relatively remote barangay. This is a scheme that hopefully will inspire other villages in Laguna and even beyond the province.

The village of Atisan is located where the Malarayat mountain looms over rolling hills straddling the borders of Lipa on the Batangas side, Tiaong in Quezon and Laguna’s San Pablo. The village is 500 meters above sea level and about 12 kilometers east of the City of San Pablo which is famous for her seven lakes.

This is slash-and-burn area where poor squatter families cut the trees for charcoal, firewood and lumber, scrounging for whatever they can to survive on scant harvests of ube, gabi, luya, the occasional bananas and sickly-thin coconut trees.

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Larry Milloroso, a 43-year old farmer from Barangay Dongon East in Numancia, Aklan is glad he has shifted to natural rice farming. Among the reasons he practices natural farming in his farm include getting a good harvest, additional profit, healthier environment, and chemical-free rice on the table.

Larry cultivates a 5,500-square meter irrigated ricefield that he planted to NSIC Rc 120 this season. In Aklan where farmers’ landholdings are commonly small and contiguous, this area can already be considered good enough to produce rice for family consumption and have some extra harvest for sale. He also grows latundan banana on 1,000 square meters, and mungbean and squash in the adjacent 1,000 square meters.

Larry learned about natural farming from PINA Foundation Inc., a non-government organization funded by the Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund which aims to help farmers increase production and income through sustainable agriculture. In 2003, PINA Foundation office in Kalibo, Aklan conducted a six-month season-long farm school in Numancia where Larry was one of the 15 enrollees.

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A 10-hectare organic farm in Galicia in Pidigan, Abra, has been drawing Cordillera farmers who want to learn about its sustainable and environmental farming practices.

Galicia Farms has served as a model to agriculture experts who advocate a shift back to traditional farming in this age of expensive chemical-based agriculture, said Pura Sumangil, director of Social Development Center (Sodec) of the Diocese of Bangued, which runs the farms. Sumangil said the farm has been promoting environment-friendly technology and has helped various groups in producing and marketing their products. The farm has a demonstration field and offers training on seed banking of traditional seeds, organic farming and organizational development. Sodec has been running the farm since the late 1990s after its former director, Sister Celerina Zabala, introduced organic farming in Bangued communities, Sumangil said.

“Even before the Organic Agriculture Act of 2010 (Republic Act 10068) came into the picture, the Department of Agriculture has been coming here to conduct training and lectures among farmers interested in organic farming. This farm has become their show window for the rest of the Cordillera,” she said.

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stingless wasp (source: startribune.com)

The Regional Crop Protection Center (RCPC) of the Department of Agriculture (DA) in Western Visayas has established three village-based trichogramma laboratories in Guimaras Island to promote a natural method of pest control.

Trichogramma, commonly known as stingless wasps, serves as a biological control agent in controlling pests that infest rice, corn and vegetables. “These wasps are eco-friendly and don’t have bad effects on the environment unlike synthetic pesticides,” Ms. Curioso said. She added that trichogramma is a low-cost but effective technology that farming families can employ to minimize the use of synthetic insecticides.

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Tet Uy (My Quaint Life) who is one of my MavenSecrets classmates under Anton Diaz  (Our Awesome Planet) will be delivering a talk on “embracing innovation and creativity to make the green lifestyle livable, comfortable, viable and inheritable” at the Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street Branch. The event will be on October 23, 2010 (Saturday).

This is indeed an excellent way of creating and spreading the “green” advocacy among the young, students and parents.

We had our vermicomposting bin setup with the help of two friends (Xavier and Malou Peña) over the weekend. They brought a kilo of African Night Crawlers (ANC) worms and showed us how to properly prepare the bed.

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