People's Integrated Farm

January-June 2016 Volume 2, Issue 1 BinnadangThe official publication of the Center for Development Programs in the Cordillera People’s Integrated Farm Binnadang is the official publication of the Center for Development Programs in the Cordillera. Binnadang is a word used by the Bontoc Kankana-ey in the Cordillera, northern Philippines for labour cooperation. This concerted action by community members is mainly applied in agriculture and community gatherings. BinnadangSTAFF Jane Lingbawan-Yap-eo Executive Director Ann Loreto Tamayo Editor Blessy Jane Eslao Dina Manggad Honoria Fag-ayan Glen Ngolab Jerry Gittabao Julie Mero Marvin Canyas Research and Write-up Angelica Maye Lingbawan Yap-eo Lay out and Cover Design Photos by CDPC The contents of this publication may be referred to or reproduced without the permission of CDPC as long as the source is duly ac- knowledged, reference is accurate, reproduction is in good faith, and the work is properly cited. This publication is supported by SOLIDAGRO and the Province of East Flanders (PEF), Belgium. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of SOLIDA- GRO and PEF. Contact Details Center for Development Programs in the Cordillera, Inc. (CDPC) #362 Cathedral of the Resurrection Church (EDNCP) compound Lower Magsaysay Avenue, Baguio City 2600, Cordillera Administrative Region, Northern Luzon, Philippines [email protected]; [email protected] [email protected] Telefax No: (+63) (74) 424-3764 cdpckordilyera.org Printed by: Valley Printing Specialist Baguio City CONTENTS 4 The Cordillera Peoples 15 Organic Farm Salidummay from Limos 11 Belgian Farmers see Development at Work January-June 2016 Binnadang 1 22 Community Agroforestry: A shared, not cash-driven, responsibility 18 Community-based Health Program, the Lacub Experience Water Flows 27 for Calaccad 34 30 Reflections of a K-12 Program: Its Impacts development worker and Challenges 2 Binnadang January-June 2016 editorial MILITARIZING DEVELOPMENT n the “battle to win hearts and minds,” the military are undergoing a grand makeover. They are picking up shovels, hammers and hoes even as they keep on their combat boots, bullets and guns. Reframing their civil military operations, they are taking on Iprojects that have little bearing on traditional security concerns. They are clearing foot trails, preparing fields, harvesting, and building bridges, clinics, day care centers, waiting sheds and schools. Branded as “peace and development” actions, these oil their entry into rural communities, and in some areas entrench their stay. Without compunction, it seems, and any cultural sensitivity, they easily settle into communities, making public space and facilities their own. They occupy schools, basket- ball courts, health centers, even intruding into the indigenous political center, dap-ay, to use as barracks, depots and to hold community meetings and youth seminars. They join local governments and government agencies in service missions, obscuring distinctions between civilian and military functions. But no makeover or rebranding can conceal the harsh reality of militarization. It disrupts, intimidates, represses. People’s organizations and development NGOs continue to be in the crosshairs of the military. Vilified as Reds and fronts of the New Peoples Army, their members are harassed and their physical safety threatened. They are alienat- ed from the community who are warned not to join their development initiatives, which are tagged as NPA projects. As in any conflict, the battle for hearts and minds inflicts collateral damage. Here the victims are the community people themselves. Militarization subverts the unity and solidarity of a community. Irrigation, potable water systems, seed and animal dispersal, farm tool development and other PO projects they would have benefitted from are stalled, thwarted or altogether halted. 30 Militarization denies communities real development. Towards sustainable agriculture CORDILLERA PEOPLES ORGANIC FARM By MATTET BASIA and JULIE MERO abuk City in Kalinga and diseases. For tenants in medium province i s the rice and big farms, they have to follow Tgranary of the Cordillera what the owners want to plant and region. To produce bumper use on their lands. The landowner crops of rice, the farmers use controls the overall production, which mostly high yielding varieties is mainly dependent on high external (HYV) boosted by commercial and chemical-based inputs, including agrochemical inputs that are extensive use of chemical fertilizers indispensable to their produc- and pesticides. tion. In barangay Lacnog, small land owner-tillers, tenants and farm The strong market promotion of workers have no recourse but to apply chemical-based fertilizers to increase expensive fertilizers and pesticides production encourages farmers to to sustain yields and to control pests adopt them. Although this commercial 4 Binnadang January-June 2016 system of farming raises yield and agrochemical industry’s active promo- showcase the optimized use of the production levels in the first few years, tion of chemical intensive agriculture land through nutrient cycling and it has become clear in recent decades as the best means of achieving the a good mix of crops and livestock. that total dependence on such inputs is highest possible crop yields. It is also The farm focuses on rice production not an effective and sustainable way to frustrating that significant researches because, firstly, rice is the basic staple farm because of inherent dangers and by some agricultural schools have food. Secondly, there is an urgent disadvantages. As they are dependent prioritized and focused on farming need to sustain and further develop on high external, chemical-based and that use chemical inputs. sustainable rice varieties in view of expensive resources, one consequence present widespread promotion and is the indebtedness of most small To help reverse this situation, the use of high yielding varieties that farmers and farm workers to financiers Center for Development Programs promote the use of extensive chemical for their inputs, including tools and in the Cordillera (CDPC) net- fertilizers and pesticides, and seeds transporting of products from farm to work through its member NGO, that are genetically modified or market. the Montanosa Research and what the local people popularly call Development Center (MRDC), has “suicide seeds.” Such seeds no longer The extensive and prolonged use of embarked on a campaign to promote reproduce new seeds, such that every agricultural chemicals further leads to organic farming towards sustainable cropping farmers have to buy seeds environmental pollution and destruc- agriculture. It has done this by from source. tion. They pollute the air, accumulate in converting a conventional farm into ground water supplies, and destroy the a people’s organic farm in Lacnog. In Lacnog with its 3,756 population soil’s natural fertility, thus causing soil 2006 through MRDC in coordination is a fitting locale, farming being degradation that is vulnerable to and with partner people’s organizations, the main economic activity in the worsened by soil erosion that eventually CDPC acquired four hectares of barangay. In addition it typified, until silts rivers and streams. The use of fossil agricultural land in barangay Lacnog its conversion, the chemical intensive fuels to produce ammonium nitrogen, for this purpose. agriculture that prevails in Tabuk. the most widely used synthetic fertilizer, Around 70% of farmers in Lacnog are emits CO2 in the atmosphere, a major Together with PO partners, MRDC, tenants whose main crop is hybrid cause of the so-called greenhouse effect which focuses on sustainable agricul- rice. Farmers have two rice croppings, and global warming. ture, has started to slowly transform selling most of their produce in the the 4-ha farmland that has long been town center to generate cash. Some From chemical subjected to chemical farming into a farmers contact buyers during harvest to organic farming wholistic organic farm. The change is time. Others use their incoming The challenge of transforming a gradual process, as much depends harvest to pay landowners, mostly the decades-old practice of farmers on the soil condition and degree of from Kalinga, for fertilizers, pesticides reliant on the use of non-organic its destruction and contamination; and other agricultural supply used fertilizers and pesticides is not easy nurturing back the soil to a natural in production. Whatever is left or simple. Despite the high cost of fertility will take at least a period of from their harvest after paying the chemical inputs and farmers’ in- 3-5 years at the minimum. landowners is for their households’ creasing awareness on their adverse consumption that hopefully would effect on soil fertility, food quality, With the recent merging of MRDC’s suffice till the next cropping season. human and animal health and program with CDPC, the farm environmental quality, farmers are now called “The Cordillera Peoples Integrated farm system hesitant to shift to more natural ways Organic Farm” is maintained and im- The Cordillera Peoples Organic of farming. More farmers are moving proved under the joint management Farm is an integrated farm, actual from traditional or organic farming of CDPC and its partner farmers’ production site, demonstration to chemical-based farming. alliance in Kalinga, the Timpuyog farm, farmers school and training ti Mannalon iti Kalinga (TMK) and center. It employs organic farming

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