permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Workman_Natural Farming in the Philippines_2011.pdf (application/pdf Object)
http://www.terraquaculture.net/articles/Workman_Natural%20Farming%20in%20the%20Philippines_2011.pdf

NATURAL FARMING IN THE PHILIPPINES:
TRADITIONAL FARMING SYSTEMS AND LOCAL EFFORTS TO SAVE THEM
Dion Workman
PUBLISHED BY NAKAZORA, 2011

The village of Bulpog is located at approximately 2400 metres above sea
level in Ifugao province,
central Luzon, the largest island of the Philippines. It is an area
characterized by mountainous terrain,
steep river valleys and large forests. The village is inhabited by a clan
of Kalanguya tribes people,
farmers and foresters.
The farmers here operate a traditional system of farming, variations of
which can be found throughout
the mountains of northern Luzon and in other remote regions throughout
Asia. It is a system of farming
that was dominant in the Asia Pacific region before the introduction of
mechanized/chemical
agriculture and/or pastoralism. It is a system of terraquaculture
(earth-water farming),1 a natural
farming system that utilizes the existing features of environments
(eco-structures) in developing highly
productive and sustainable systems. In particular it works with the natural
flows of water through the
landscape, making optimal use of the water and the nutrients it carries.
In the steep mountain valleys surrounding Bulpog the basic pattern of the
farming system is terraced
rice paddies as low down in the system as possible with vegetables grown
around the edges of the
paddies and managed forest (pinguo) above. The forest is recognized as the
source of water and fertility
that keeps the whole system productive. The terraces protect the soil,
preventing erosion from surface
run-off and the forests above ensure continued water and nutrient flow to
the rice terraces as the water
percolates through the humus of the forest floor and seeps downhill into
the terraced paddies.
The Bulpog clan of the Kalanguya people are true forest dwellers. Much of
their food, their medicines,
shelter and many items used in daily life are products of their forests.
Their cash crops of coffee and
betel nut are grown throughout the forest. Food grown in the forest and on
its fringes includes avocado,
Figure 1: Rice paddies and managed forests, Bulpog
coconut, taro, cassava, chili, citrus, papaya, banana, pineapple, rattan,
ginger, yam as well as various
fungi and wild honey. The distinction between farmed and wild food is truly
blurred in these forests. In
a sense everything is ‘farmed’ in that selective ‘weeding’ of the forest is
done in order to promote the
growth of the most desirable species but at the same time everything grown
in the forest is somewhat
wild as self-seeding is the main method of propagation and everything is
grown in truly complex
polycultures.
What is not grown in the forest, or on the forest edge around dwellings and
along pathways, is
produced as part of the paddy system. The farmers here grow from one to
three crops of rice per paddy
field per year depending on the variety (hundreds of different rice
varieties are grown in Ifugao
province) and how much time they want to spend in their paddies. While rice
is the main staple any
failure in the rice crop could be covered by the secondary staples of taro
and cassava. The people here
may be ‘poor’ but they are certainly in no risk of starvation!
The rice paddies are also biodiverse polycultural systems. With the rice is
grown taro and azolla, ducks,
molluscs and fish (various kinds of snails, fresh water crayfish and
loaches). On the walls of the
paddies legumes are grown, usually the winged bean (Psophocarpus
tetragonolobus), a delicious and
highly nutritious bean that is also an excellent nitrogen fixer. Other
vegetables are grown around the
edges of the paddies but on occasion whole plots of vegetables are planted.
These more recognizable
vegetable gardens are used to form new terraces. The farmers create rows
running with the slope so that
the act of gardening slowly moves the soil downhill, eventually creating a
level terrace that can be used
as a paddy.
Figure 2: Gerald Puguon Jr. clears vegetation around coffee saplings
Like traditional forest dwellers the world over the Kalanguya's way of life
is exposed to many threats
and the introduction of coffee to their forests was a strategic response to
a major environmental threat.
The planting of coffee in these forests began in earnest in the 1970′s when
the introduction of cattle
grazing threatened to destroy the forests and the entire terraqueous
system. Insightful farmers realized
that in order to save the forests they needed to develop more cash crops
that required forest cover and
began to plant coffee widely. Initially the plan was a success with the
grazing of cattle quickly
abandoned but a crash in coffee prices in the 1980′s and subsequent
fluctuations have exposed the
forest to new threats. When prices are good the coffee, a plant that
naturally grows in the shade of
forests, provides a good income and encourages the maintenance of forest
cover in the mountains.
When prices fall the less scrupulous farmers become susceptible to the
suggestions and practices of
outsiders more focused on exploitation than sustainability.
Most recently Filipino government agricultural advisors have been
encouraging the forest farmers to
cut down patches of forest in order to grow coffee plants in the open – a
practice utilized for increased
production of coffee through the faster maturation of the plant and short
cycles of plantation
regeneration, i.e., an industrial monocultural approach to coffee
production that requires the destruction
of the forest and the subsequent depletion of fertility in order to
increase productivity marginally for a
short time. But, as Sandor Ellix Katz points out, “it does not make any
kind of sense for the people (or
the land) of any place to grow massive quantities of stimulants for export
rather than nutritious food for
local consumption. It only happens by the exercise of force and the
alienation of people from the
land.”2
The origins of slavery and colonization are to be found in the production
of stimulants – chocolate,
coffee and sugar – for the Western world and it is in the production of
these same commodities that
slavery persists to this day. And while we may believe that colonizing
armies are a thing of the past, in
Figure 3: Community rice harvest, Bulpog