THERE'S this new technique that is being tried out in our neighbor Indonesia that may be applicable here. It's called Conservation Agriculture (CA) and from initial successes, it seems like it's bringing back the farmers who have opted to find word in urban areas to go back to their farms and plant.
It is also aligned with the city's Watershed Ordinance that prohibits tilling in specific areas of the watersheds.
As the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines it, CA "teaches farmers to disturb the soil as little as possible, keep the soil covered, and mix and rotate crops."
In this way, the soil is kept healthy, very little disturbance is made on the environment, and most of all, because of the healthy soil, it increases crop yields at a much reduced production cost, and most of all, it conserves water. CA, FAO said, is part of what is called Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA), which is being developed now worldwide considering the changing climate that has been pushing farm families deeper into the subsistence threshold.
FAO tells the story of a 58-year-old Indonesian farmer who left his farm to earn a living as a construction worker in Malaysia. Munggah aq Amaq Genap of Sekaroh Village has been suffering from what farmers have been suffering because of the changing climate and unhealthy soil -- low production, consequently, inability to provide for the family. Realizing that being a migrant worker is much more difficult and with just a little bit more in earnings, he returned to his farm and soon after learned about CA in the farming season of 2015-2016. Despite a drought affecting the farms all around his, his corn continued to grow and deliver a bumper harvest. And that is because of minimal disturbance to the soil and seasonal intercropping.
It's not just him who has discovered CA out there. FAO reported that there 650 farmer groups practicing with more than 12,500 members in Indonesia and that the Indonesian government intends to scale up the technique and push it into mainstream agricultural practices for its national food security program.
Following DA Secretary Manny Piñol's FB posts, we can see that there is success in making loan facilities available to poor farmers across the country and that they are recording 100% loan repayments. That is indeed good news, but we all know that our environment is also crying out for help. Why not do both through mainstreaming CA? There are best practices now that are documented, these should make the shift a little bit easier. Anything that holds promise for the farmers that benefits the environment at the same time is always a good idea to explore. saestremera@gmail.com