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Posted by Lani Estepa on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Unknown to many residents, the Barangay Demo Farm in Labnig, San Juan, Ilocos Sur is quietly and gradually gaining prominence as a major flagship project of Gov. DV Savellano. Covering more than 20 hectares, the farm is home to livestock being raised by the provincial government for its livestock dispersal program (cows, native pigs, goats, sasso chicken, there are even horses), organic fertilizer production in support of organic farming, vegetable plots, sunflower farm (when in season).
According to reports, the provincial government is expanding the farm for it to qualify as an Economic Agriculture Tourism Zone in the region, indeed a very productive way of using what was before a wasteland, remnant of the failed cotton industry in Lapog.
Of special interest to me is the organic fertilizer project where the farm produces organic fertilizer using straws, dried leaves, rice hull and the help of earthworms to hasten decomposition. It is about time farmers used organic fertilizers. Though there may be few local studies to prove it, overuse of chemicals in the soil has rendered it infertile. Even unschooled farming folks I talk with admit that before the advent of fertilizers (with the Masagana ’99 program, they claim), their lands produced bountiful harvests. Now they notice that plants do not prosper if farmers don’t use chemicals. It seems the soil has become dependent on fertilizers and pesticides which, because they are costly, contribute to the cycle of poverty among farming households who borrow to buy these farm inputs and come harvest time, pay the loan back with nothing left to finance the next crop. And so they borrow again.
When fully developed, the demo farm can be a significant factor in weaning farmers away from costly chemical farm inputs and in the process, give the soil respite from their adverse effects and restore its natural productivity.
This is great news for Lapog and for Ilocos. Imagine if every town has a similar program, that would educate our farmers in more earth-friendly methods of farming. I remember when we were in elementary, we used to have a compost pit in school. I wonder if schools these days still have one like it.
Thanks for these great news you are sharing with us all.
1 | Vic Andallo January 10th, 2009 at 8:33 amYou’re welcome, Manong! I’m not so sure now about the compost pit in schools. But organic farming is slowly gaining a following here. And it should, because I think that organic farming is one concept that must be done on a large scale, otherwise it would be useless. If one parcel in a contiguous tract of land is applied with chemical inputs while organic fertilizer is used in the other parts, this one parcel will just the same be polluting the rest of the land. For organic farming to truly reverse the adverse impact of chemical pesticides and fertilizers on the land, everyone must practice it.
2 | Lani January 10th, 2009 at 9:31 am