Monday, September 01, 2008 Farmers' dilemma: Where to get organic wonder
WHILE farmers may be eager to adopt the use of organic-based fertilizers, advocates and concerned agencies would need to hold more information campaign on how agricultural growers could avail of these products.
Jose Andiso, president of the Benguet Farmers Federation Inc., said the organic-based fertilizers like the trichoderma has been known to farmers for some time now, but most are not using the product because they lack the adequate information on where to access and how to apply the product.
Andiso has not tried trichoderma, saying this has been mentioned several times in various agricultural fora and discussions but claimed the product is not yet mass produced for commercialization.
Dr. Virginia Cuevas, developer of the trichoderma biocon, said in a recent seminar on organic-based fertilizer, trichoderma is already commercially available in the market.
Cuevas was tapped by the Bureau of Agricultural Research of the Department of Agriculture (DA) to spearhead the massive information dissemination of the microbial fertilizer, which has been registered with the Fertilizer and Pesticides Authority in 2004.
Government, through the DA, is advocating the use of organic fertilizers in crop production, an effort to reduce the costs for fertilizers and pesticides, while increasing agricultural yields to ensure food sufficiency.
Cuevas, a professor at the Institute of Biological Sciences at the University of the Philippines-Los Baños, said use of trichoderma biocon could reduce synthetic fertilizer by as much as 50 percent, as confirmed by farmers who have been using the product. It could also increase crop yield by 10 to 30 percent.
Because the microbial fertilizer enhances the development of the plants' roots, crops applied with trichoderma are more resistant to drought. (JC)
