IPIL, Zamboanga Sibugay -- While the rubber farmers in the province look up to the promised P30-million provincial buffer fund to help the ailing rubber industry, the answer it seems lies right there where the rubber trees are.
Engr. Bennet Santander has showed to the rest of the rubber farmers how. "The key is diversification and make every square-foot of your land productive."
"In my 1.5 hectares, I am able to utilize at least 5 hectares," he said.
Santander, an industrial engineer by profession, was never wrong with his mathematics: He grew 1,000 rubber trees, which traditionally occupies 1.0 hectare; he cultivated a three-fourth hectare rice field; he planted coconut trees, normally it occupies a half hectare of land; he cultured tilapia on a three-fourth hectare piece of land; he grew vegetables on a half-hectare land; maintained a budwood garden on a half-hectare; and grew a mix of dulaw (turmeric), and fruits.
He started developing the farm, which is located some four kilometers away from the national highway of Barangay Upper Pangi of this town, four years ago.
The decision to live in the farm and develop it himself was driven by the desire to come up with a "demonstration farm" that will showcase an integrated rubber farming system.
The core crop of the farm is rubber where he maintains a budwood garden of new clones of rubber from which he earns at least P300,000 annually.
"What I did was to plant the rubber seedlings spaced comfortably to allow other crops to grow," he said. The 1,000 rubber seedlings were planted two meters between hills, and three meters between rows. For every three rows, there is a space of 20 meters to another three rows of planted rubber seedlings.
At present, the rubber trees are tappable. But during the gestation period of three years for rubber to be tappable, he sourced his income from his budwood garden, vegetable garden, rice field, and fruits.
"There is food on my table from the produce of the land," he said.
The key, he said, is to get the optimum yield for every square foot of land. The conservative estimate of his annual income is no less than half a million pesos.
"I am doing it and it is working," he said.
The 65-year-old Santander has remained steadfast, however, in his advocacy for the rubber industry amid the problem besetting it.
The small rubber farmers, he said, can still do well even with "a little help from the government."
The Provincial Government established last year P30-million buffer fund for rubber to help out rubber farmers as the raw rubber farm-gate price continues to tumble.
"I am setting aside P30-million buffer fund for rubber," Governor Wilter Yap Palma announced during the first meeting of the Zamboanga Sibugay Rubber Industry Development Board (ZSRIDB) last year at the Capitol Conference Room.
The buffer fund is intended to provide cushion for small rubber farmers who are hardly hit by the downward trend of trading price of raw rubber.
The governor told the members of the rubber board he is "committed to revitalize the rubber industry" in the province.
"We have to do something to the industry where thousands of Sibugaynons depend upon for livelihood," he said in an interview.
Seven months after the elections, however, nothing has been heard what happened to the P30-million buffer fund.
The province ranked second in cup lump production in 2012. North Cotabato, a province in Soccsksargen, registered the highest cup lump production in 2012. But recent statistics showed the province is the rubber capital of the country.
In 2012, Philippines had a total cup lump production of 442,998 metric tons. Zamboanga Sibugay accounted for 38 percent of the country's total cup lump production. Collectively, Zamboanga Peninsula's percentage share to country's cup lump production in 2012 was about 43 percent. Seventy five percent of the region's production came from Zamboanga Sibugay.