Ban herbicides in our hills and mountains

President Marcos uttered the right words last week on a very grave environmental crisis that’s unfolding in our midst. The question is, will the urgency in his words translate into urgent actions?

Mr. Marcos revealed that our country’s agricultural lands are losing a massive “457 million tons of soil annually.” The President made the alarming disclosure in his speech at the First National Soil Health Summit of the Department of Science and Technology. Citing studies made by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, an enormous 75 percent of our country’s total croplands are suffering from erosion. The President cited multiple factors that are responsible for the loss of our rich and fertile soil, which include improper use of fertilizers and pesticides, loss of forest cover, and the conversion of lands for settlements.

While the President mentioned the use of pesticides as among the culprits, he failed to emphasize a particular agricultural practice that’s principally responsible for our massive loss of life-sustaining soil. This is the proliferation of genetically modified organism (GMO) yellow corn farming. To obtain optimal yield, GMO yellow corn farming requires the hefty use of herbicides. Herbicide is a substance or chemical that’s applied on farms to kill naturally growing but unwanted weeds and other plants. The exponential increase in GMO yellow corn farming has brought an equally exponential increase in the use of herbicides.

A huge part of our country’s agricultural farms which are planted with GMO yellow corn are located in hills and mountains. In fact, so many of our hills and mountains are being cleared of forest and natural vegetation in order to be utilized for yellow corn farming. With the enormous use of herbicides, the soil in our hills and mountains is stripped of protection. During the rainy season, the amount of soil erosion is enormous because the soil is brittle and porous due to the absence of natural vegetation that holds the land.

On one hiking trip in our hilly town of Alcala, Cagayan, a thunderstorm brought a sudden downpour of heavy torrential rains. I saw the volume of eroded soil carried by rainwater that rushed down the slopes of a farm planted with GMO yellow corn. Considering that incidents of soil erosion occur multiple times during the rainy season of each year, it was scary to imagine how our hills and mountains can be reduced to bare and barren rocks in the not-so-distant future if the unabated use of herbicides continues. This is not to mention the unique flora and fauna, undiscovered micro creatures, and entire ecosystems, that are massacred wholesale with the unfettered use of herbicides.

It is appalling to think that notwithstanding our government’s knowledge of the dire consequences, the sale and use of herbicides remain unregulated and uncontrolled. Anyone can buy herbicides off the shelf. The herbicide regulations of the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority pertain only to their impact on health. There’s absolutely no regulation that addresses and confronts their being the major reason for the heavy loss of our soil, an unfolding environmental catastrophe that does not only affect health but the very survival of every living thing on this planet, including humanity.

If Mr. Marcos is to show sincerity in his words, he must craft and implement regulations that will strictly prohibit herbicide use in our hills and mountains. Chainsaws can only cut trees one at a time, but their sale and use are strictly regulated with heavy criminal sanctions for any unlicensed possession. How come our government turns a blind eye to the even more calamitous consequences of the unregulated use of herbicides on the very fabric of life on earth?

Our government should embark on a massive and wholistic program to help farmers with homesteads located in our hills and mountains, to shift to the planting of peanut, cassava, ube, black pepper, coffee, cacao, and other crops that do not strip the soil of natural vegetation. And the assistance should extend all the way to ensuring ready and steady buyers for their harvest.

Our seas are polluted. Our air is contaminated. Our atmosphere has intolerable heat. Our lands are denuded. Does humanity have a grand plan of abandoning life on earth, and migrating completely to virtual reality?

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