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Free book on sustainable rice agriculture

Whenever sustainable agriculture and organic farming are taken up in this space, quite a number of readers send in feedback and queries, or even offer information about what they are doing in their own farms and backyards. Which means that sustainable agriculture, natural farming, organic farming, or in the new Filipino jargon of enlightened farmers, “likas-kaya at organikong pagsasaka” (LKP) is gaining adherents and advocates.

(I do backyard organic gardening and have lately been eating so much patola—the short, gourd-like type which looks like an oversized sayote. I think I got the seeds from the Bureau of Plants. I have a lot of small, wild ampalaya for juicing.)

At last, the words sustainable agriculture and organic farming have been given a Filipino translation. And that is the title of the newly published book by University of the Philippines-Los Banos (UP-LB) professor Oscar B. Zamora and his team. “Likas-Kaya at Organikong Pagsasaka ng Palay” (Sustainable and Organic Rice Agriculture) was launched last week at the Go-Organic! Philippines forum and bazaar at the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM) headquarters in Quezon City. I thought the book would be for sale but I was surprised when I was told it was free. It is in Filipino so whatever I quote here is my own translation into English.



Written and published for farmers, the book has no copyright and the publishers even encourage translations, adaptations, copying and mass dissemination. Just cite the author and publishers (PRRM, UP-LB College of Agriculture and Mind Builders Publishing House). If you are a farmer and want a free copy, contact Go-Organic! through PRRM, 59 Mother Ignacia St. corner Scout Lazcano, QC. Tel. 3724992, 3724994. Email: info@prrm.org or obzamora@uplb.edu.ph,
info@goorganizphilippines.org. You may also visit www.goorganicphilippines.org.

The book (8x11, 198 pp.) has 12 chapters and is amply illustrated. While it offers a lot of background and scientific information, the book is really a how-to book. Chapter 1 is on sustainable agriculture and organic farming. What do they mean, what are the principles, how are they practiced?

The book tackles land preparation, seed selection, seed preparation (wetbed, drybed, dapog and SRI methods), seeding (wet, dry). It discusses the harmful effects of chemical fertilizers on the soil. Water is an important subject too. A whole chapter is devoted to pest control and management. Chapter 10, Pagiiba at pag-uugnay ng mga gawaing pangsakahan, (changing and integrating farm activities) deals with transfer of energy, water and substances cycles, plants, animals, biodiversified farming system, synergy, etc.

Farm management is something farmers also need to learn well in order for their endeavors to be both profitable and sustainable.

A whole chapter is devoted to organic fertilizer production, composting methods, the Korean natural farming, Bokashi fermented fertilizer, carbonized rice hull.

The last chapter offers 10 principles and methods (vertical and horizontal conversion) on how to convert into likas-kayang pagsasaka (LKP) or sustainable agriculture. What to consider before converting, and more.

The book will surely boost the Organic FIELDS Support Program (OFSP), Phase 1 of which was launched in Nov. 2008. For Phase 1, the Department of Agriculture (DA) is targeting 10 percent organic conversion of rice fields. Partners in this effort are the DA, PRRM, Bureau of Soils and Management, La Liga Policy Institute and the city government of Alaminos. Go Organic! Philippines, a consortium of civil society groups, is right at the center of this.

I was in Bohol two weeks ago and I was pleased to find out that the province has its own Go Organic program. Bohol Initiators for Sustainable Agriculture and Development (BISAD) is also a consortium of non-government organizations, people’s organizations, government agencies and business enterprises working to promote, strengthen and mainstream the principles, technologies and strategies of sustainable agriculture and development. (Email: bisadbohol@yahoo.com). It is in partnership with Australian Aid.

I saw big BISAD tarpaulin posters with information on organic agriculture. Flyers and brochures are also available. Listed are places where one could buy organically grown products in Bohol. Dr. Zamora’s book will surely be a great boost for BISAD’s campaign.
Once more, what is organic agriculture? “It is an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and utilizes management practices that restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony.”

“`Organic’ is a labeling term that denotes products produced under the authority of the DA’s Organic Rule (AO#13 series of 2002 and EO 481). The principal guidelines for organic production are to use materials and practices that enhance the ecological balance of natural systems and that integrate the parts of farming system into an ecological whole.”

Here are 8 reasons to go organic (from the Organic Trade Organization). Organic tastes great. It reduces health risks. Organic farms respect our water resources. Organic farmers build healthy soil. They work in harmony with nature. Organic producers are leaders in innovative research. They strive to preserve diversity. Organic farming helps keep rural communities healthy.

Correction: The film “Lagablab sa Maribojoc” which featured Maribojoc, Bohol starred Cesar Ramirez, not Fernando Poe Jr. as mentioned last week. FPJ starred in “Esteban” which was also shot in Bohol.

Maribojoc

It is not very often that one gets out of the city to find and experience the pristine and the primeval. Last week, I was in Maribojoc in the island province of Bohol to enjoy not just the fiesta and behold its ancient landmarks but to also experience its “secret places,” the blue and green quiet spaces that glide in and out of one’s dreams.

While Bohol now figures big on the tourism map because of the beaches of Panglao, the Chocolate Hills and the cultural sites, it has other little-known spots that could draw a different breed of visitors, explorers who are drawn to paths less traveled. Like myself. Maribojoc has such special places.

The town is only a 30-minute drive from Tagbilaran City, but it still holds one of the country’s last frontiers. I am referring to its vast mangrove areas that are still thick with nipa palm and different species of trees. (More on these later.)



I must mention that I arrived a few hours before the Pacquiao-Hatton boxing match which was over after only two rounds. The town’s gym was packed with people for the free live show. (My photo of the jubilating crowd came out in the Philippine Daily Inquirer the next day, and it thrilled the Maribojocanons.) But you know what? The bout came live via Indonesia (with anchors speaking in Bahasa). This was because, this time, only theaters and malls in Bohol could have cable TV pay-per-view. Obviously, so people would pay to watch.

Maribojoc couldn’t get it live for its poor constituents even if it would pay the cable company like what it did for the past bouts. So where would the hoi-polloi go? Mayor Leoncio “Jun” Evasco Jr. found a way, a “guerrilla” way.

This is the Jun Evasco I had met many years ago (but I do not remember where or how). He was a Catholic priest. He later became a ranking member of the communist New People’s Army. He was arrested and so heavily tortured by the military he wished they would finish him off. Four comrades who were arrested with him were summarily executed, leaving him the only survivor. He was in prison for several years and was released during the Aquino presidency. He worked in government for many years, his last job being as chief of staff of the unconventional mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo Duterte.

The details of Evasco’s life story deserves a separate telling some other time.

Now back in the town of his birth, Evasco, 65, married, with children and grandchildren, is bringing his life experiences as former priest, communist rebel, NGO worker and public servant to his elective post. Coming from a prominent family of Maribojoc, the homecoming Evasco won as mayor by a landslide in 2007.

Maribojoc has a population of only 18,000. Many are into farming and fishing. It has its share of legends and history, among them the bell at the bottom of the river, the centuries-old Punta Cruz watchtower by the sea, and beside it, the wooden cross planted by Italian navigator Pigafetta. This weekend, national historical markers will be installed on the watchtower and the church of Maribojoc. The film “Lagablab sa Maribojoc” starring the late Fernando Poe Jr. was filmed here.

The spiritual life of Maribojocanons deeply connects to the limestone church with ornately painted ceilings, which is dedicated to St. Vincent Ferrer who is nicknamed “Enting.” During feasts, people dance the Enting-Enting to seek the intercession of the Spanish Dominican saint who was a great missionary in his time. Of course, I joined in the revelry inside the church, and earlier, the fluvial procession of fishing boats out in the open sea and got my pants all wet.

But to go deeper into the heart of this place, one must meet the hardy folk who are working hard to move the town into the future while preserving its natural heritage. Many an application for quarrying, mining and fishpond permit has the mayor rejected if they looked like threats to the environment.

And as to the blue and green spaces I mentioned earlier, Maribojoc still has some of the biggest mangrove areas in this country. Fantastic is an understatement. Lining the banks of the Abatan River (which runs through four towns) are thick rows of nipa palms and mangrove trees that sustain a variety of wildlife. Multi-awarded poet Marjorie Evasco (a cousin of the mayor’s) wrote of this habitat as “a temple of dark green silence.”

We rafted on the Abatan River in the afternoon with only the sound of birds and insects to accompany us. At some point, we transferred from the raft to a tiny banca (boat) and paddled quietly into the smaller inlets under a bower of leaves. I thought of the river scenes in Francis Ford Coppola’s film and Joseph Conrad’s novel. For me, this was the next best thing to sailing on the Amazon, minus the anaconda.

Cooper Resabal Jr., a journalist who was based abroad for several years, is back in his hometown to help jumpstart the ecotourism program. This kind of tourism is not for everyone, he said. No dining cruises here like in Loboc. Just the green silence for rafters, kayakers, wildlife watchers, fishers, mystics.

I visited another mangrove area thick with 21 species of trees and with a half-kilometer board walk that leads to an islet planted to coconuts and with a good view of the sea. This serves as camping site. The sanctuary is managed by the San Vicente Mangrove Association. I also visited a farmers’ group that practices organic farming.

I stayed in a bed-and-breakfast place with a breathtaking view of the mountain in the distance, the vast and misty mangrove down below and the silvery sheen of a bend in the river.
For inquiries related to Maribojoc, write to tribukauswagan@yahoo.com.

Highwaymen

According to Wikipedia, the word highwayman came to be in the 1600s. The term is mainly applied to robbers who travelled on horses, as opposed to those who robbed on foot. Mounted robbers were widely considered to be socially superior to those who walked. Slang names for them included “knights of the road” and “gentlemen of the road”. Such robbers operated in Great Britain and Ireland from the Elizabethan period until the early 19th century. In the mid- to late 19th-century American West, highwaymen were known as road agents. In the same time period in Australia, they were known as bushrangers.

Literature has its share of highwaymen, one of them immortalized in Alfred Noyes’ narrative poem “The Highwayman” which we studied in school. I remember Bess, the landlord’s daughter, whom the highwayman wooed. And then “…they shot him down in the highway,/Down like a dog in the highway,/And he lay in his blood in the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.”

The highwayman is on my mind as I read the latest investigative report of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) on the roads and highways projects of the Arroyo administration. The report was written by Malou Mangahas, Karol Ilagan and Tita C. Valderrama.



PCIJ reports that according to the Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) online registry at least four congressmen and a governor have personal and family interests in companies that secured multi-million-peso civil-works contracts over the last seven years.

When PCIJ asked these officials about possible conflict of interest, they all replied that, indeed, they have interests in the companies, but that contracts were awarded before they took their oaths of office. One said he had divested, two said they had relinquished their roles in the companies but did not say how.

The Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials (RA 6713) prescribes that “a public official or employee shall avoid conflicts of interest at all times.” PCIJ says there are no divestment records or deeds of assignments filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Department of Trade and Industry.

PCIJ did a two-month scrutiny of the online database of the DPWH, and found out that the total value of civil-works contracts the department awarded from 2000 to 2008 reached a staggering P138.5 billion. And yet, PCIJ points out, “a big proportion of these projects did not result in new roads. Instead, over half of the 27,535 contracts awarded during the period involved the regraveling, repair, maintenance, or improvement of barangay and local roads.”

And while DPWH secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. says that “infrastructure investment has been recognized as a critical pillar in economic development and poverty alleviation under the administration of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo”, PCIJ counters that these projects did little to reduce poverty incidence in the eight of 10 provinces that got the biggest value of contracts.

Here’s more: “In truth, the rush to roll out multiple projects might have been driven by a combination of political considerations and personal concerns for profit-making. One congressman, for instance, points out that regraveling is often done on farm-to-market roads and repeated almost on a yearly basis because ‘this is the easiest thing to do to make money. The contractor puts gravel on a road, and when heavy rains pour, the gravel is washed away, and you are back to having dirt road again that needs regraveling.’”

The PCIJ reviewed the DPWH contracts database as a follow-up to the Jan. 2009 report of the World Bank’s anti-corruption unit, the Department of Institutional Integrity, which established the collusion and corruption in WB-funded road projects implemented by the DPWH. PCIJ also did corroborating checks with other agencies.

A total of 27,535 contracts were posted on the DPWH website, but it excluded pork barrel projects and other lump-sum project funds lodged with the DPWH for implementation. But Ebdane told PCIJ there’s more that are on listed on line, and that from 2004 to 2008 alone, “a total of P185.341 billion has been allocated covering 92,737 projects” under DPWH.

But the DPWH website data yield enough information, says PCIJ, such as the names of the top 10 companies that bagged the biggest value of contracts. PCIJ presumed that contractors that received from P2 billion to P5 billion worth of DPWH projects over the last seven years would be registered as corporations. PCIJ found out that four contractors in the top 10 list operate only as sole-proprietorship entities.

Even more surprising is that a single clan from Batangas owns and controls two companies in the DPWH’s top 10 list. “Perseverance,” the clan stated, is the key. PCIJ made visits to the companies’ offices and saw that it was in a gas station. Other top 10 companies had offices in residential areas.

PCIJ found Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board (PCAB) data to be confusing. In the DPWH database, companies that ranked 3 to 10 supposedly had General Engineering AAA category, having obtained the track record and minimum “1,150 minimum overall credit points” required, but, it turned out, some of them are only in the B and A category.

There’s more. Check out the PCIJ website.

Picture the highwayman. “And still on a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,/When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,/When the road is a gypsy's ribbon looping the purple moor,/The highwayman comes riding--/Riding--riding--/The highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.”