Grow drought-resistant crops,

Work with, not against nature

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol (PIA)—Work with nature, not against it. Grow drought resistant crops.

This sums up the wisdom that advocates of the natural kind of agriculture that understands the cycles of life shares, amidst the impending threat of agricultural failure with El Nino at the thresholds.

Sharing age-old wisdom passed on from generations, time-tested drought resistant agriculture practitioners Reginaldo Balatayo and Bonifacio Javier brought forward the option of permaculture in response to the waning interest in agriculture and the struggle to make farming work using modern technologies that demand more effort.

Permaculture is a way of designing farms, gardens, and communities so they work like natural ecosystems, they segment on the internet-streaming program would later show.

It is a way of agriculture that looks at how nature works, making the farmer and his crops resilient, making sustainability work as it does not alter the environment, adds Javier, who sits as an active member of the Movement for Liveable Cebu.

As most struggling farmers would go directly into the strenuous task of land preparation, permaculture practitioners would plan based on the core ethics of earth stewardship: care for the earth, care for its people and sharing the bounty of the land.

Permaculture is a sustainable design approach that mimics nature to produce food, conserve resources, and create self-sustaining systems, Balatayo, who is a civil engineer by education, summed.

Using the principle that water seeks its own level, permaculturists understand that everything is planned around water or rainwater and its management for potential farm use, planting different crops together so they support each other, growing fruit trees, vegetables, and livestock in the same area, composting by recycling kitchen and farm waste into fertilizer, and with the forecasted dry season ahead, picking drought-tolerant crops to reduce water use and increase their survival.

Let us practice a culture that is permanent, because our culture now is for the temporary, he said.

For Balatayo, who resides in rocky Punta Cruz in Maribojoc, it is unlikely for him to grow rice.

Og asa ka nahimutang, ayaw paghimo og kanang dili nimo mahimo, (wherever you are, don’t go for things that you have to struggle to do.) came as his advice to farmers who dream of creating pockets of food paradise in communities.

We will produce what we want to eat and eat what we can produce, he shared what his family practices in life.

Bringing this micro wisdom into the national level, he illustrated that not all grow rice and as rice eaters, it is but just natural for the country to import rice.

Also inherent in the permaculture practice is consuming less of rice and instead going for extender crops rich in proteins, like camote, ubi, gabi, banana, apale, and even breadfruit.

In fact, assistant provincial agriculturist Larry Pamugas went further to suggest eating wild yams like boot, coot, palaw, and the go-to-food for the Ati tribesmen: wild cross breed of the gabi and palaw called baliakag.

Nutrition, can also be attained from other sources, that is why, instead of planting rice in areas that are not suited, that does not have water, plant the substitutes for it instead.

“Taga Maribojoc man ko, walay basak, walay tubig, so nananum kog saging, ubi, kamote, apale, that kon manginahanglan ta og rice, gamay na lang. (As somebody from Maribojoc which does not have rice fields and water sources, we plant bananas, ubi, sweet yam and apale, that when you would need rice, you do not have to need as much.

To the impending drought which PAG-ASA said could extend as far as the first quarter of 2027, the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist urged families to bring the food security issue at home.

With the threat of a long dry spell, families are also facing the consequences of rising costs and unavailability of agricultural inputs and even seeds.

With most of agricultural research and development deeply tied to the petro funds, Pamugas instead said the option for organic agriculture using drought resistant crops is the best thing.

That means producing the family’s needs in pots, in any available space, producing own seedlings and using organic fertilizer from compost kitchen refuse, and using kitchen vegetable washing, to conserve water which is still available. (PIABohol)

AGRI, THE EASY WAY. Engr. Reginaldo Balatayo and Bonifacio Javier brought the idea of permaculture, which works with nature and not against it, as a sustainable response to the threatened food security in the drought season issue, at the Kapihan sa PIA. Plant drought resilient crops, conserve water and recycle kitchen refuse for fertilizer, both suggest. (PIAbohol)