The plan is quite plain. The partnership will develop some 20,000 hectares agricultural land in the Tongonan mountain range, which straddles Ormoc City and Kananga town, into a major grower of semi-temperate vegetables and high value crops. Seven villages in Kananga (Rizal, Hiluctogan, Montebello, Aguiting, Lim-ao, San Ignacio, and Tongoran) and nine villages in Ormoc City (Milagro, Nueva Vista, Cabaon-an, Danao, Gaas, Liberty, Tongonan, Mahayahay and Dolores) are being targeted.
This will accordingly transform the Ormoc-Kananga range into a major vegetable growing area in Eastern Visayas, supplying the region’s need for vegetables, flowers and other high value crops. Both the DA and the EDC will infuse P92 million into the five-year project providing livelihood to an estimated 5,000 farmers in the land preparation, cultivation, harvesting, processing and marketing of vegetables and other high value commercial crops.
The DA will share P29 million to build a consolidation center and pilot packing house and provide marketing support. Another Pl3 million is earmarked for research and development. For its part, PNOC-EDC will provide a total of P50 million to finance farming activities at P10 million each year from 2012 to 2016.
The scheme is like a salad bowl where only pleasant ingredients are mixed on top while the potion laced with poison lies somewhere at the bottom. First, let us. explore ramifications of the project. It is clear at the onset that the intention is to make the farmers commercial producers of vegetables and other high-value crops. Because of its commercial nature, each farmer will be limited to one of two crops to plant following current practices of mono-cropping schemes. According to government experts, this is the accepted ‘economies of scale’ standard, the only way by which supply can meet demand.
In this scheme, farmers will be encouraged to plant hybrid varieties for these are the high-yielding types, use massive amounts of chemical fertilizers, and apply large doses of pesticides and fungicides to prevent infestation. Since vegetables need sunlight, large areas will have to be cleared. And since nothing is said about introducing appropriate technologies, it is likely that hillsides will be plowed and pulverized. Please note that the villages being targeted for development are all upland, some of them even inside the PNOC reservation areas and watersheds.
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In all likelihood, assistance will be provided to farmers for them to hire additional manpower to work on their farms, buy fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides, and procure seeds. This production frenzy will trigger massive clearing of forests and tillage of mountain slopes that are only fit for trees. One can just imagine the consequences. For instance, Barangay Milagro at present produces flowers using technologies imported by the farmers of Busay, Cebu. Steep slopes are being tilled and pulverized, and massive doses of pesticides are sprayed from time to time, causing an irritating smell in the surroundings. These farmers are now tilling areas beside the Anilao riverbank, right at the headwaters!
When it rains, the tilled areas are naturally washed down the river, along with the harmful chemicals sprayed on the plants. With additional funding and support from EDC and DA, we can expect far worse consequences here going right into the heart of Ormoc City where the Anilao river flows.
With Danao being one of the villages being targeted for agricultural development, we can also expect the planned tourism activities there to bog down. At the moment, the mountain slopes around the lake are being tilled by settlers trying to make a living. When it rains, the lake turns brownish and murky with the loose soil washed down to the lake. Its capacity to supply fresh water to six towns and one city east of the island of Leyte is thus impaired. With this plan of EDC and DA, we can expect farmers in the area to double or triple their efforts – and far worse consequences on the lake.
The scenario in other targeted areas will probably have slight variations in color and texture, but in substance, the planned project follows the old green revolution formula: commercial scale production + funding support + marketing assistance + technology = increasing yields and income. And like its old model, it is likely doomed to disaster. High yielding varieties of rice plus massive fertilizer and pesticide applications never resulted in increasing rice production or more income for the producers. In fact, the opposite is true. Farmers have remained poor, and we are importing rice from neighboring countries. The crowning success of the so-called green revolution is found only in the cash registers of rice millers and traders, banks and dealers of fertilizers and pesticides.
Under the present commercial production practices, upland farming becomes unsustainable because of its destructive tendencies. It destroys the soil and makes it arid and impotent. It destroys the surrounding ecosystem as it encourages the cutting of trees and massive clearing. It is responsible for soil erosion as well as the siltation of our rivers and shorelines.
The monetary assistance can be better spent training and providing assistance to farmers in small-scale, family based production schemes directed towards food security. This way, the integrity of farming is preserved, resources conserved and the productivity of the farmers enhanced. Under this scheme, farmers will be producing principally to feed their respective families, with the surplus going to the market, not the other way around.
There will have to be radical modifications in the entire project scheme, with the marketing and processing aspects given lesser importance and research and development given more stress, especially in the aspect of developing farming models that farmers can emulate and learn from. Government technicians will have to undergo a change of mindsets and orientation, even as they will be encouraged to immerse in the farming communities that they will be serving. .
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