(Editor’s Note: It was World Food Day on Oct. 16. World Food Day seeks, among other things, to heighten public awareness of the problem of hunger. The need to develop sustainable agricultural practices to address hunger becomes ever more pressing in the wake of global warming and the biofuel boom.)

THERE was a time when farmers could prepare a feast from rice fields, which were also the habitat of fish, frogs, shellfish and the like, and were planted to vegetables.

Before the coming of the Spaniards, people in what is now called the Philippines were blessed with nature’s bounty. There was no such thing as land as property. Only gold, trinkets, cloth or slaves were considered private property.

The coming of the Spaniards displaced indigenous communities by virtue of the foreigners’ “title” to the land. The communities found themselves merely tillers of sugarcane, tobacco, coffee and with the coming of the Americans of pineapple and bananas.

Mono-crop plantations in several areas of the country replaced the varied selection of food and other crops that had sufficiently served the needs of the communities. The agricultural products were shipped to the “mother countries” to feed their growing industries. The land became degraded as a consequence of mono-crop farming.

Later, not even the rice fields were spared from foreign programs such as the so-called Green Revolution, which came to be known more popularly in the country as Masagana 99.

Fish, frogs disappear

The fish, frogs and shellfish slowly disappeared and were replaced by the golden kuhol (a snail that destroys rice plants) and all sorts of pests, while the big business of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, weedicides and herbicides grew. The land got further degraded as a consequence of chemical farming.

Farmers became more and more dependent on the usurer, middleman, landlords, mayor, congressman and government functionary as they learned to apply all the chemical quick-fixes which they had to buy with credit from the government package of “support services.” Also, the farmers became sickly due to the toxic inputs.

Nature’s way

Now, with the price of chemical inputs hitting the sky, there seems to be no other choice for a growing number of farmers but to follow nature’s way.

Palay Pinoy is one big step that several farmers are taking by discarding chemicals such as urea or synthetic nitrogen and applying the principle of nature’s nitrogen and other cycles. This is practically free as it involves discards, soil, heat of the sun, air, water and friendly microorganisms and can be done at home, on the farm and the rest of the community.

The Palay Pinoy concept is carried out in the Ecology (Eco-) Center system and its practice follows the order in nature as manifested in its cycles and in the way resources are managed.

Nitrogen cycle

The nitrogen cycle, for instance, shows us that this important ingredient in making plants grow is abundant in the atmosphere but it cannot be immediately used by the plants. Rain brings down the nitrogen, which is also present in decayed organisms, plants and carcasses. It can also be found in kitchens, yards, farms and forests.

The microorganisms in the soil, such as the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, turn the nitrogen into nitrate which is absorbed by the roots of plants to help them grow and make protein, benefiting the animals that eat these plants. This process, called decomposition, is the pattern for composting which produces organic fertilizer.

Composting

Compost produced in households and the community Eco-Center is used to revive, revitalize and enhance the degraded land for planting. This goes with a big bonus for the farmer who is spared from the expense of buying chemical fertilizer, pesticide and weedicide, and from exposure to toxic materials that can harm him or her.

Composting involves the soil cover where microorganisms thrive to help process the waste, heat from the sun for energy, air to prevent decomposing matter from smelling foul and to bring in the oxygen, and some water to moisten the mixture and help hasten decomposition.

By using compost the farmers help “fix” the degraded environment by reducing global warming, which is partly due to the emissions of nitrous oxide from chemical farm inputs. The use of compost also prevents garbage dumping.

Planting rice

One method of planting rice that demonstrates the Palay Pinoy concept involves the following:

Sow the seeds in a seedbed with compost, close to where these will be transplanted after 7 to 12 days.

Plough the land with compost way before planting.

Plant the seedlings singly, not in a bunch, and slanted and far apart at about 30 to 40 centimeters or even farther so that the roots can draw sufficient supply of nutrients in the soil and the seedlings can get lots of sunlight.

Avoid flooding the field. Simply water it as in gardening to let into the soil more oxygen that helps bacteria in fixing nitrogen for plant food.

Weed by hand or with a mechanical weeder. This helps loosen the soil for more oxygen.

Note how the combined action of the soil and microorganisms, sunlight, air and water is well carried out with this method, which was practiced by Filipino farmers before Green Revolution was introduced.

‘Dapog,’ ‘margate,’ SRI

This method was practice in the 1950s or even earlier in Camarines Norte; in the 1970s in Pampanga by the late Lorenzo Jose who called it Masagana with a little variation—the rows were planted along an east-to-west orientation.

Learning of this method now, some farmers recall the dapog way of planting which also involved transplanting the seedlings while very young and planting these far apart. Another association to this method that others recall is margate.

Quite recently, the system of rice intensification or SRI was introduced into the country as a technology from Madagascar where it was “discovered”—but only in the late 1980s by Fr. Henri de Laulanie, SJ. It is almost or exactly the same as that followed in Bicol and Pampanga.

Eco-lifestyle in Tuktukan

In Bulacan, a Palay Pinoy story started in August 2004 when the municipal dump in Barangay Tuktukan, Guiguinto was closed.

Every day in the village, biodegradable waste is collected from a number of households. Others are already doing their own composting.

Two tribikes with sidecars go around doing the collection and bring the waste to the Ecology Center where it is composted and used in gardens. Even the fowl love it.

“Today, 80 percent to 90 percent of our population segregates its waste. With the help of our former mayor, Ambrosio Cruz, and the provincial government under former governor Josie Mendoza, and Bangon Kalikasan, which guided us all the way, we were able to close our dump on McArthur Highway. Fourteen villages used to throw their waste in our place,” said village captain Romeo Tonog.

Expanding eco-lifestyle

Village councilor Nora Santos said the village could now supply compost to its elementary school’s vegetable garden, the Palay Pinoy demo farms of Bangon Kalikasan in Bulacan, several private farms and the village’s own vegetable garden in the Eco-Center.

The compost from Tuktukan reached the agrarian reform community of the village of Maronquillo in San Rafael in July 2006, as starter for a 100-square-meter demonstration farm. This yielded 47 kilos which would be equivalent to some 90 cavans for a one-hectare farm.

Maronquillo, a rain-fed area, averages 60-70 cavans of palay per hectare with the use of chemical inputs.

“Maganda ang butil, malintog (The grain is beautiful, full and heavy) said farmer Gregorio “Ka Guying” Talusan who worked the demo plot.

Efren Valenzuela’s 1,200-sq m property in the village yielded 20.5 cavans in October 2007 and 15 cavans in March 2008. At present, his whole four hectares and his brother Mamerto’s five hectares are organically fertilized.

“Unlike before, when we used to spray the field almost every week with chemical pesticide, there was no pest that harmed the plants,” said Efren. At the same time, there is hardly any burning of rice straws, wilted vegetables, grasses, weeds and leaves in the village.

Mamerto said the key was giving the right information to the farmers and village residents. “Just think about all the waste we throw away, but which can be used as organic fertilizer for free,” he said.

Thick roots, tall plants

Starter compost from Tuktukan next went to the villages of Masagana and Manatal in Pandi, Bulacan. Alfredo Mendoza of Masagana harvested 15 cavans from a 1,000-sq m lot, while Dr. Chris Marquez harvested 5.6 cavans from a 400-sq m plot. Mendoza is now awaiting another harvest from a 5,000-sq m property and Marquez, from a 2,000-sq m lot.

“When the palay stalks were growing, we observed that the roots were thick and the plants were tall. When a storm hit, they did not easily bend. We also noticed that, in contrast to the chemically fed palay, once the plant reached its peak of ripening, the slightest touch did not cause many grains to fall,” Marquez said.

Bigger grains

Alex de la Cruz, one of Chris’ farm workers, also observed that the grains were much bigger than those exposed to chemical fertilizer.

In the villages of Malamig and Catacte in Bustos, Bulacan, starter compost from Tuktukan and the village of Tabe supplied three demo farms.

“I used to do this kind of planting before (single stalks planted far apart) and I did it very well. We always got a good harvest, no chemicals,” Lilia Hernandez of Malamig said.

Valentin Hernandez, Lilia’s husband, expressed confidence that the demo farm would turn out well. “Since my land is just beside the street, many people will see it and they will surely follow what we’ve done,” he said.

Their 1,000-sq m plot planted to Palay Pinoy is two-months old. Francisco Mateo, barangay secretary, said: It looks good, thick and tall, with many stalks already [from the single stalk planted].)

For a 4,000-sq m lot of the village of Paradise III, City of San Jose Del Monte, starter compost came from Francisco Homes Yakal village.

“The following day after the planting, it rained so hard I thought that was the end. To my surprise, the next day, the seedlings were up again,” said Ruel Dumindin. “I will also plant patola (sponge gourd) using the remaining sacks of compost.”

Lush and green

The high cost of fertilizer has discouraged many of the vegetable farmers in Paradise village from planting, but the village and the rest of the mountainous area of the city is lush and green with various trees and many plants—a very rich source of compost.

The agrarian reform communities cited above are quite open to organic and ecological farming, especially now that the prices of chemical inputs are prohibitive while the surroundings of the farms have become vulnerable to environmental damage due to garbage dumping, burning, quarrying, mining and other environmentally destructive activities such as tire burning and battery recycling.

Korean coops

Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman, in his trip to South Korea in 2007, saw how productive organic and natural farms had brought wealth to cooperatives and farmers.

He has called the attention of his department to the fact that the implementation of the agrarian reform program has not given due attention to the provision in the law that “the State shall encourage and undertake the just distribution of all agricultural lands, subject to the priorities and retention limits set forth in this Act, having taken into account ecological, developmental and equity considerations.”

Going ecological with Palay Pinoy highlights the farmers’ revived confidence in their own capability to enhance the productivity of their land while protecting it and the whole environment—with the help of their families, the community and nature.

Interrelated

Everything in nature is important, interrelated, ever-changing and finite in some aspects yet constantly ever-renewing.

In this vast creation, man is but a part of it, not the center. There are those who think of themselves and act as the center of creation. Instead of being stewards of nature’s resources, they have presumed themselves to be lord of all of nature, which is not ecological.

Thus, they denuded forests, drilled, blasted and leveled mountains then further dug up the ground for mining and quarrying, after which they dumped garbage into the gaping holes.

With many areas of the planet almost turned into wasteland, the great idea, or the only option left, really, is to emulate our forebears who instinctively understood and deeply respected nature’s ways and resources in space, time, energy, matter and the spirit which they recognized in the soil, air, sun, the waters, the forests and the trees.

(Joey C. Papa and Ana V. Papa are founding officers of Bangon Kalikasan Ecology Centers/Bangon Kalikasan Movement. They can be reached at bangonkalikasan@yahoo.com)