These are the varied roles performed by Alma Abales, a woman farmer in Valencia City, province of Bukidnon.
As a single mother, Abales personally cultivates her four-hectare farm in Valencia. Of the four hectares, 2.2 hectares of which came from the government's Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (Carp).
She is also the vice-chairperson of a farmers' organization called Araneta Farmers Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association Multi-Purpose Cooperative (Afarbamco).
Abales is one of the many women farmers in Mindanao whose contribution in agriculture remains invisible.
"Rural women in Mindanao, like anywhere else in the Philippines, work side by side with men in farms for decades. For decades also, they have helped feed the family and community. But they remain as invisible farmers," Chona Lasaca, executive director of Luntiaw Mindanaw, Inc., a non-government organization working with agricultural women workers, tribal women, and women farmers, said.
"Rendered invisible, women farmers have very limited access to credit, agricultural services, training and technology," the executive director of Luntiaw Mindanaw added.
Abales also added that she grew up tilling the land of her parents, even applied chemical spray and plowed the land, especially during weekends when there were no classes.
In late 1990s, after she graduated from college, she said she worked full-time in her farm. A year after that, she decided to practice organic farming after she became sick of asthma.
Before, she said, trainings for agricultural productivity were only given to men; thus, women lagged behind men in terms of agricultural productivity.
In their organization Afarbamco, she said that women now share leadership with men -- as three out of seven members of the board of Afarbamco are women.
Armida Pajaron, another woman farmer in Valencia, also narrate in her dialect, "Being a mother, a wife, a farmer, a leader in a farmers' organization are not easy roles for me as a woman."
Pajaron, one of the board members of Afarbamco, added that "the most important thing is to explain to your family your role to the family as well as to the society so that they can add support in your varied roles."
"Being a woman farmer is not difficult for me, as tilling the land is not done at all times and hard labor can be done slowly," Pajaron added.
One of the women's group that Luntiaw Mindanaw is working with now, Lasaca said, is the Malahutayong Kahiusahan sa mga Kababayen-an sa Bukidnon (Makakabus), Inc., also based in Valencia.
Makakabus, Lasaca said, was organized by a group of women farmers who are wives of the members of Bukidnon Masipag Farmers Multi-Purpose Cooperative.
As women farmers themselves, they asked to be included in the structure of Bukidnon Masipag Farmers Multi-Purpose Cooperative but the response was "not right now," Lasaca said. After this request, the women farmers were no longer invited to the board meetings.
"Shut out of the male-dominated farmers' cooperative, the women organized themselves and have their group registered," the executive director of Luntiaw Mindanao said.
She added that Makakabus is now an economically self-reliant organization, as the women farmers are prudent in managing their resources while taking risks by engaging in economic activities such as catering, operating post-harvest equipments, shift from chemical rice farming to organic rice farming, and organic rice trading.
"The achievement of Makakabus is still a speck in a landscape of agriculture where women farmers are rendered invisible," Lasaca said.
She added, "In male-constituted farmer organizations which are most common, the officers must be persuaded to open their door to women and include specific needs of women farmers in their agenda."
