Learning Together: Agriculture in the Phillipines

Fun, teaching go hand in hand in lessons about environment

2010-10-14T18:48:00.000-07:00

Fun, teaching go hand in hand in lessons about environment

Michael A. Bengwayan

Not all staid stuff: Learning about the environment need not be just about reading books. Trips to the jungle can foster understanding of nature, even among younger children, but such trips should also be fun. Picture: www.mayuc.com

Michael Bengwayan

BRUNEI is blessed with its untouched forests, clear pristine rivers, open valleys and bountiful biodiversity. It is a beauty to behold and a paradise for environmental teachers.

It is also a learning laboratory for pupils who can have fun and appreciate nature and its importance to humans and the world.

As an environmentalist in the Philippines for many years, I have planned and carried out several educational environmental trips with elemenatry, secondary pupils and college students.

It is important that in planning an environmental educational activity, it should be fun. Students should be able to learn. And finally, students should be able to correlate their learning to life's realities.

Here are some pointers for teachers in planning and implementing a fruitful environmental trip.

Set a goal or objective

There must be an educational objective. It must be SMART: meaning it is Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound.

An example can be: To increase environmental awareness of Grade 5 and 6 pupils by introducing them to the beauty of Brunei by visiting the Ulu Temburong National Park on October 15.

Get the permission of your school head before you plan the activity.

Note down the pupils' expectations

The children's expectations are important. Make a list of what they expect to see, know, learn. Know their wishes. Based on these information needs, you can logically and sequentially plan the activities.

Later on after the educational trip, check whether these expectations have been met or the pupils questions answered.

Orient your staff

Since you will work with some staff or co-teachers who will assist you, make sure they know the objectives of the activity. They should also have a common understanding of the activities goal and objectives. They should at least be knowledgeable in environmental issues, and trained in first aid and disaster management.

Allow them to make the trip fun and enjoyable for the pupils. Identify their roles and tasks individually. If a docor or nurse can volunteer to participate, include her or him.

Make your budget

Identify and list the things that will be needed and how much these will cost. These should include transportation, meals/food, first aid kits and medicine, water, flashlights, rope for rapelling, matchboxes, pocket knives and jungle bolos, insect repellants, pupils notebooks and pens, camera, cell phones, compass.

Identify Your itinerary and how long you will be in said place

If the children are visiting several sites, be sure they will not stay too long in one place or else they will not have enough time for other places. Spread out your time in each place equally or dependent on the significance of the place or the things they want to see or learn.

Orient the pupils a day before the trip

Before the trip, the pupils should be informed beforehand where they will go, when, what they will see, learn, observe and write and do, how should they ensure safety and why are they going to these places.

Make your letters to each individual parents and make sure you have their permission allowing their children to join the activity.

Group students in pairs to be buddies and explain that for the whole duration of the trip each buddy is responsible for his or her partner.

Tell the pupils what to bring and what not to bring, what to wear, what to do and what not to do. If there are rules and regulations in the nature parks that they will go to, get those rules and read it to the students and let them understand it.

Inform proper authorities where you are going, when you will go and when you and the children are expected to be back. Check the weather bulletin and make sure the day is clear and no untoward weather disturbance will happen.

When you're ready, go and have fun. But remember to remind your pupils that in a forest, they should:

Take nothing but pictures

Leave nothing but footprints

Kill nothing but time

The writer has worked on environmental issues for many years in the Philippines, educating and training children and students on ecological concerns. Read about his environmental education group at www.geocities.com/pinetreemacik/macik

The Brunei Times

Michael Bengwayan

Carbon trading: Saving forests and communities Michael Bengwayan

2010-10-14T18:42:00.000-07:00

Carbon trading: Saving forests and communities

Michael A Bengwayan
BALI

BY ALL indications after all the rhetoric from the international environmental meet here, carbon trading is now looking more and more as the “winningest option” to save forests and communities.

Carbon trading deals involving tree growing in developing countries will provide greater benefits than just improving the environment. It could sharply reduce poverty among the rural poor and provide businesses with an inexpensive way to offset their carbon emissions.

A report entitled Forest carbon and Local Livelihoods: Assessment and Policy Recommendations argues that the use of forests to reduce carbon emissions is financially viable, and brings considerable benefits to people in rural communities.

The research counters the view that most carbon-trading deals between industry and tree growers in developing countries will have negative environmental and social consequences.

Carbon trading allows industries in developed countries to off-set their emissions of carbon dioxide by investing in reforestation and clean energy projects in developing countries.

The report, prepared by the Centre for International Forestry Research (Cifor) and Forests Trends, are seeking major changes to the carbon trading rules under the Kyoto Protocol.

Both authorities say that community-friendly forest carbon projects are unlikely to take root without proactive changes in the Kyoto Protocols Clean Development Mechanism rules, and in the approaches that developing countries and project designers are taking.

The report seeks action in four main areas.

Make all types of forestry and agroforestry projects with significant benefits for local communities eligible for the Clean Development Mechanism (as long as they also meet rigorous requirements for carbon benefits). For example, draft rules omit forest rehabilitation as an approved activity despite its enormous social benefits and significant carbon-sequestration potential.

Reduce risks for local communities. The rules should require assessments of the social impact of projects to ascertain how local people have benefited or been harmed. National governments will need to protect and formalise land tenure rights of communities, or carbon deals will be riddled with conflict, increasing their financial risk for investors.

Reduce the cost of managing community projects. Private businesses and NGOs can act as intermediaries to combine the carbon offsets produced by multiple farmers or communities and sell them jointly to buyers. For example, in Mexico, a local environmental organisation helped to organise 400 small-scale farmers in 20 communities to sequester carbon by planting trees around their crop fields. With the NGO acting as the intermediary, the farmers sold carbon credits equal to 17,000 tonnes of carbon to the International Federation of Automobiles for between US$10 ($14.5) and $12 per tonne of carbon. The CDM rules should make community-based forestry projects eligible for the low-cost “fast-track” approval process.

Reduce risks and costs for investors. The report notes that there are new players in the carbon-trading field who can simplify deal making and reduce the costs of organising and marketing community tree-growing projects. For example, industry buyers are now able to purchase carbon offsets from investors who have portfolios of projects, which spreads risk. The independent, non-profit Face Foundation has developed a portfolio of five projects in five countries, affecting 135,000 hectares that sequester 21 million tonnes of carbon.

The report estimates that many community-based projects could sell carbon credits for $US 15 to $US 25 per tonne of sequestered carbon. This could mean a potential private financial flow of $US300 million per year to some of the world’s poorest people — more than the current annual flows of official overseas aid for forestry development in poor countries.

The writer is based in Manila covering environment and community development issues.

The Brunei Times

Indigenous Peoples' Traditional Ricfe Varieties Making a Comeback

2010-09-12T19:54:00.000-07:00

Indigenous People's Traditional Rice Varieties Making A Comeback

By Michael A. Bengwayan

Traditional rice varieties once grown and nurtured by indigenous peoples are making a comeback because of the importance of their genes that are necessary in breeding rice for the future.

This was made known when this author, director of the Cordillera Ecological Center (PINE TREE) was invited to speak at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which has spearheaded world research in rice technology since the early 1950s.

For sometime, there was a growing fear that hybrid rice will altogether eliminate traditional rice varieties. Today, current conditions prove that traditional rice varieties are here to stay and are necessary for rice evolution.

IRRI has started giving back to farmers and communities small packets of traditional rice varieties that will be planted and serve as planting materials. Technological assistance is likewise provided by IRRI for those who wish to plant once again traditional rice varieties.

“IRRI has now realized that traditional rice varieties need to be put back into farmers’ fields. IRRI is doing just that—giving back traditional rice varieties it has kept for so many years in its high tech seedbank, the environmental group PINE TREE bared.

Outstanding characteristics of traditional rice varieties, like resistance to pests and diseases and high yielding capability, are genetically engineered with other characteristics of other rice varieties to serve as building blocks for new rice varieties.

PINE TREE is working with United Nations Development Program Global Environment Facility (UNDP-GEF) in the Philippines to protect indigenous peoples traditional rice varieities.

In Karao, Bokod, Benguet, farmers with assistance from PINE TREE has saved and continue to sustain the use of seven traditional rice varieties by establishing a rice seedbank shared by community people. seedbank. The seven traditional varieties now being conserved by the Karao farmers are found nowhere else in the Philipines.

PINE TREE is linking with IRRI to get traditional rice seeds especially upland un-irrigated varieties and bring these back to farmers’ fields because these are vital for food security and in providing future genetic material.

For many years, hybrid rice was promoted in the Philippines especially by the government believing it was the an answer to the growing population. But while it improved production, it required expensive chemical inputs that endangered not only humans but also altered the ecosystem adversely. Today, the country is the leading rice importer in Asia and it has lost 90 per cent of all its traditional rice varieties, he said.

The Philippine government insisted on pushing for hybrid rice even with its past dismal failure, especially so because the Department of Philippine Agriculture signed an agreement with IRRI to a US$216 million project for the production of subsidized hybrid and certified seeds, he added.

This happened even though the World Bank concluded that the Philippines hybrid rice program had not produced “much net social benefit’, adding that “conventional rice varieties were more socially profitable than hybrids”?

The reality, PINE TREE says that food giant corporations Philippine corrupt officials and food corporations stand to gain illicitly from all these.

The main beneficiary of the various hybrid rice schemes, for instance, is SL Agritech, owned by Filipino Chinese businessman Henry Lim. In 2006, SL Agritech supplied 65 per cent of the hybrid rice seeds purchased through the country’s hybrid rice programme earning the company more than US$ 4 million. It also was a time when the Philippine government official of the Department of Agriculture JocJoc (Oh what a joke indeed to Filipino farmers!) Bolante romped away with millions of pesos worth of fertilizers intended to support the program, PINE TREE explained.

While traditional rice varieties were forgotten in the past decades, they are the “heart and soul of rice”, PINE TREE avers.

They require little fertilizer and no chemical inputs, now blamed for the degeneration of farmlands in many parts of the world. Traditional rice varieties are more nutrient-rich, tastier and friendlier to the soil. It allows farmers protect to protect their soil and ecosystem and have control of the seeds that their forefathers have reared for centuries.

PINE TREE is encouraging farmers to keep their own seeds and bank these to prevent the seeds from being pirated by big multinational groups.

Seedsaving or banking is the best protection that indigenous peoples have against biopiracy, PINE TREE said.

The indigenous peoples in the Cordillera region own some of the best sustainable and indigenous practices in agriculture and forest conservation.

For instance, the IPs from mountain Province practice sustainable farming by using “lumeng” (mixture of decomposed rice straw with pig manure) and wild sunflower (Tithanium diversifolium) stalks as basal manure and green manure before planting traditional rice varieties.

They also incorporate the brown-green nitrogen fixing algae Azolla which fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere and delivers this for rice use as nitrogen fertilizer.

In forest conservation, the indigenous peoples of Sagada, Besao, Bauko and Tadian practice the “lakon” forest system which enables forests to be conserved and protected.

In Ifugao, the IPs there practice the “muyung” and “pinugo” agroforestry systems that incorporate timber with fruits trees, rice, crops and livestock to ensure ecological balance.

But as modernization creeps in, some of these IP indigenous knowledge are starting to crumble. It may not be long before these are forgotten, unless immediate measures are taken up to popularize these with the new generation.

PINE TREE Seedbanking for Food Security

2010-09-04T12:56:00.001-07:00

Philippine Indigenous NGO Seedbanking For Food Security

Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan, 2010

Early this year, the World Bank came out with an official announcement that there will be serious food shortages in at least 60 developing countries and that it will lead to social unrest.

The warning is the latest indication that worldwide, food security is being threatened and that there is an urgent need to address the causes behind, one of which is continuous erosion as well as loss of genetic material for crops.

Globally, food crops are being lost and worse, being owned and controlled by few corporations. This has to stop and no better answer can communities be more involved than in seedbanking for their own future.

In support to the global seedbanking movement, the Cordillera Ecological Center more known as PINE TREE which operates in the Cordillera region that is made up of several indigenous peoples particularly the Igorots, has established four community seedbanking sites in the Philippines for food security. The first is located in Karao, Bokod, province of Benguet where some 12 indigenous rice varieties have been saved and are now being grown by the indigenous peoples known as Ibalois and Kalanhuyas.

The second is in Lusod, Kabayan, also in Benguet where 29 endemic sweet potato varieties are now being grown for many uses by the Kalanguya and Ibaloi tribes.

The third seedbank is in Caponga and Central Tublay, Tublay also in Bengut where Ibaloi indigenous women-farmers now own and use seven bean varieties.

The projects were supported by the United Nations Global Environmental Facility (UNDP-GEF).

PINE TREE observed five principles or “laws” of genetic conservation as its foundation in the implementation of its community-based seedbanking (CSB).

First, agricultural diversity can only be safeguarded through the use of diverse strategies. No one strategy could hope to preserve and protect what it took so many human cultures, farming systems and environments so long to produce. Different conservation systems can complement each other and provide insurance against the inadequacies or shortcomings of any one method.

Second, what agricultural diversity is saved depends on who is consulted. How much is saved depends on how many people are involved. Farmers, gardeners, fishing people, medicine makers, religious leaders, carpenters-all have different interests that foreign scientists could never hope to fully appreciate. All segments of a community need to be involved to insure that the total needs of a community are met. The more involvement, the greater the potential to conserve.

Third, agricultural diversity will not be saved unless it is used. The value of diversity is in its use. Only use can diversity be appreciated enough to be saved. And only in use can it continue to evolve, thus retaining its value.

Fourth, agricultural diversity cannot be saved without saving the farm community. Conversely, the farm community cannot be saved without saving diversity. Diversity, like music or a dialect, is a part of the community that produce it. It cannot exist for long without that community and the circumstances that gave rise to it. Saving farmers is a prerequisite of saving diversity. Conversely, communities must save their agricultural diversity in order to retain their own options for development and self-reliance. Someone else’s seeds imply someone else’s needs.

And fifth, the need for diversity is never-ending. Therefore, our efforts to preserve this diversity can never cease. Because extinction is forever, conservation must be forever. No technology can relieve us of our responsibility to preserve agricultural diversity for ourselves and all future generations. Thus, we must continue to utilize diverse conservation strategies, involve as many people in the process as possible, see that diversity is actively used and insure the survival of the farm community-for as long as we want agricultural diversity to exist.

Safeguarding Diversity

There are several ways in which community strategy can support institutional strategies in seedbanking.

One, during seed surveys and collection, community seedbanking strategies can support socio-ecological surveys of the community land area based upon consultations with farmers, food prepares, medicine-makers, wood cutters and gatherers, herders fisher-folk and artisans involving teams of plant-users in survey and monitoring exercises covering locally and globally imported species.

During storage, communities can organize a series of community-based collection expeditions covering a range of crops throughout the entire growing season.

During rejuvenation, farmers can maintain small plots for endangered cultivars and/or samples are split with one complete set sent to a national seed bank and a matching set cleaned, dried, and stored under cool/dry conditions within the community and monitored by local people knowledgeable about the species.

In documentation, field collection sheets are copied and filed and labels are prepared. Information is kept in most useful local language using locally-understood land descriptions and personal names for the benefit of further investigation and rejuvenation.

In seed evaluation, community seed collectors discuss characteristics of each sample with the local user at the time of collection. Immediate usefulness and long-term value are documented.

Evaluation information is shared with community users and samples may be adopted directly or adapted by community members to improve production.

Tags: Philippines genetics agriculture Ibaloi Kalanhuyas food security

August, Die She Must

2010-09-03T13:23:00.001-07:00

I leave August with a sigh of pity. It must have been that I lost doors of opportunity. or did not bother to open some. But September is in and I have concluded I had enough of thinking. Yes, I have done some chores, this and that. In my garden, most specifically but it does not give me full satisfaction. Between the things I love and the things I want to do lies a chasm. I have yet to cross over and put a bridge on both. Yet I constantly prod myself to do things which have not yet been done. Starting this month, I start once more.

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2010-04-30T04:13:00.001-07:00

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How I am Beating Drought with Harvested Rainwater

2010-03-01T20:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.teachamantofish.org.uk/blogs/PINETREE/index.html

How I am Beating Drought with Harvested Rainwater

It's drought in the Philippines and it is giving farmers woes and headaches. Crops are dying so are livestock especially chicken. Even fishes are dying. Many farmers cannot plant. Fifteen women and young men we are training on sustainable gardening cannot plant because there is no water. Some people with water pumps say they don't get enough water from underneath the ground.

In my house, I am dealing with the drought with harvested rainwater I saved last year when typhoons hit our place. I harvest water from the sky.

Not many know that there are two types of water--greenwater and bluewater. Greenwater are those that come from lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, springs, brooks and waterholes. Bluewater is rain. Most of green water is wasted and spent unwisely. But only few people harvest rainwater which is abundant every rainy season.

I have some 3,000 plastic bottles filled with rainwater. I estimate my harvested rainwater to be about 1,000 liters. This water is supporting my beans and pumpkin crops.

I recommend people to harvest rainwater during rainy days and store them. It may not only save their crops. One day, it may be their lives.

For ways on how to harvest rainwater, write me at michaelbengwayan@hotmail.com

The Importance of Petroleum Nut to the Philippines and to Filipinos

2010-02-09T17:59:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends at Bibaknets,

In 2005, I decided to leave my journalism Reinhard Mohn Fellowship at Germany to work on a native tree which I believed would one day provide rural folks a sustainable alternative energy. I refer to the petroleum nut (Pitosporum resineferum) which grows in the Cordillera region but sadly now are very few because their natural habitat continue to be destroyed. I have read an article in the Canopy publication of the Forest Research Institute dated 1982 that it was impossible to grow the tree from seeds that is why FORI (now ERDS of DENR used cuttings and planted these in Loakan). Being an agriculturist, I wanted to find out. I harvested a few seeds at Kayapa, Nueva Vizcaya. I plantied the seeds in various media but also failed. After four months, I was only able to grow 23 which I planted in my house in Longlong and farm in Tublay. These are now 5 years old and ready to bear fruit.

After a year, I discovered why it was difficult to plant the seeds. Correcting earlier untried research efforts, I was able to raise more than 10,000 seedlings. I meticulously recorded all my research activities and after two years I was ready to distribute thousands of seedlings to farmers.

Why did I bother about the tree? Because of three reasons. First, it will provide rural-dwelling Filipinos an alternative and ustainable source of fuel to replace expensive and vanishing fossil fuel. Secondly, when people plant the tree to harvest its fruits for oil, there will be less cutting of trees for fuelwood or firewood because rural families will now use oil from the petroleum nut for cooking and lighting. Third, the more people will plant petroleum nut to get more oil for socio-economic needs, the more trees there will be to serve as carbon sink and help prevent global warming.

When I made my discoveries, I went to several government agencies but they were not interested. So I continued my work alone. Today, I am happy to tell you that I and my small team have successfully been able to:

1) Test and prove that the petroleum nut oil can replace LPG and kerosene for cooking
2) It can replace kerosene for lighting.
3) It can run small one stroke engine and even a small water pump.

Fueld by our discovereries, we wrote several international organizations. Many responded and bared how they would help us, indicating the large economic potential of the tree. A Singaporean, a Japnese and five European organizations continue to pursue us in a joint venture.

However, we have chosen one institution because of one reason. We have chosen to forge a working relationship with the University of Tennessee because they are the only group which assured us that they will help us protect the patent rights of the tree from going into the control of biopirates, something we wanted to be assured of from all those who made an offer. In my presentation to the Benguet Provincial Board who asked me to orient them on the tree, I mentioned that it was not only important to conserve and propagate the tree but to protect it from exploiters. The university will help us on this item aside from doing the laboratory work on the potential of the tree to replace diesel and gasoline as fuel.

Before we arrived at our research results, I approached some government institutions for help but they gave me the cold shoulder. In fact, one institution-- an agricultural university--, to my consternation, is trying to duplicate our efforts.

On February 23, I will divulge to a group of top agribusiness companies (the Management Assn. of the Philippines), in Makatai the efforts done on the tree. This group wants to support a national conservation and production program for the petroleum nut. On March 7, I and representatives from University of Tennessee will hold a press conference and explain what we intend to do with our joint efforts and the results.

We will keep you updated and I trust our efforts will redown into helping our brothers and sisters in rural areas in the Cordillera region, and in other parts of the country, especially our farmers and of course in protecting our ecosystms and our indigenous resource properties and rights.

Michael A. Bengwayan

Petroleum Nut To be Tested on Different Engines

2010-02-09T11:56:00.000-08:00

My group PINE TREE, the Cordillera Ecological Education, Training, Research and Information Center which is doing research on petroleum nut as an alternative sustainable fuel will be testing the petroleum nut oil on different diesel engines by May this year. This has become final as PINE TREE forged a formal working agreement with the University of The University of Tennessee
Department of Plant Sciences and the Dr. Neal Stewart Lab. The purpose is to 1) establish the extent and potential of the tree's oil as fuel and 2) to protect the tree from biopirates.

Michael

Home Garden, How to Do It by Dr. Mike in the Philippines

2010-02-05T01:59:00.000-08:00

Home Garden, How to Do It by Dr. Mike in the Philippines

Traditional home gardens in northern Philippines range from 20 to 100 square meters. Planted normally are a mixture of sweet potato, yam, corn, beans, and a tree or two of avocado, pomelo, and guava.

Sounds good but not so good. It is important to have a plan in developing a home garden. These tips can help you:

A. In the garden,
1. Consider where the sun rises from because you should not plant crops that will shade other crops. Do storey planting where shorter plants are fully exposed to sunlight before the taller ones. (eg. pechay, eggplants, corn). Thus, crop orientation is important.

2. Look at your soil. Does it need more fertilizer?. Reddish to brownish soils indicate lack of NPK nutrients. if you don't know how to get soil sample, the most appropriate thing to do is increase your NPK levels. What will you use? Use organic fertilizer for basal application. If you intend to plant green leafy vegetables, use compost made out from nitrogen fixing plants and trees (eg. centrosima, caliandra, alnus). If you will plant fruit-bearing veggies or tuber-producing crops, increase potassium and phosphorus basal fertilizer.

It is also important to know if your soil needs to be watered regularly or not. How will you know? Get a handful of soil from your tilled garden, close your fist on it until you make a lump, raise your hand and drop it on the ground. If it does not break freely, your soil is too soggy, you don't need to water every other day. But if the soil breaks freely into many parts, then your soil is too dry, water every other day.

Now examine your soil. Do you have earthworms, century bugs and tiny critters/ if yes, you have a good soil. If you don't see anything moving or crawling, you do a damn "dead soil", that's not too good.

3. Protecting your plant is of utmost important. But remember, if you have the right to produce, you have the responsibility to produce safe and nutritious crops. Always consider the need to make the environment safe and clean and the rights of consumers. Never try to poison both. Ordinarily, the main pests of vegetables are slugs, snails and caterpillars (of many different insects), are the worst enemies.

To rid of slugs and snail especially in your seedbeds, put a cup of beer in a can and place it at the edge or rim of your seedbed. These attracts the pests and fall into the can. In the morning, dispose the pests. For caterpillars, put 15 to 20 cigarette butts in a liter of water and let them stay there for a week. The nicotene and tar of the cigarette butt mixes with the water eventually. Use this to spray against caterpillars.

Okay guys, more next time so drop by.

Michael the Gardener

Crisphead Losses to Romaine or Cos Lettuce

2010-01-04T03:37:00.000-08:00

The unfortunate typhoon events that caused massive flooding and landslides in Benguet and Cordillera region Philippines forced PINE TREE to adjust its project on organic vegetables. of the fifteen young men that were to be trained eleven backed out because they had to go and help their families.

Because PINE TREE was helping victims and evacuees, it involved instead 12 young mothers in its training program. With the advent of Christmas and the need to raise immediate cash to help the family victims, the trainees planted two kinds of lettuce--crisphead and romaine.

The harvest on the crisphead variety suffered marketing problems because smuggled Chinese crisphead found its way to the local market. the romaine lettuce sold well however.

Growing organic Romaine Lettuce

2009-12-08T11:45:00.001-08:00

A Reprint from PINE TREE's Newsletter
Growing organic Romaine Lettuce
By Emmanuel Arañas, PINE TREE Staff and Trainee

Organic vegetables can be grown in a small area or containers such as garden boxes and pots. Last October, we at PINE TREE sowed romaine lettuce seeds in pots. The seeds were from our seed bank. We used soil that was fertilized by vermicast, or the so-called worm poop. These are the castings of the African night crawlers. They are rich in nutrients that improve soil fertility which in turn help the lettuces’ growth.

Moreover, the lettuce pots were placed where repellant and nitrogen-fixing plants are to protect them from pests and diseases. We harvested some of these organic lettuces in the first week of December. This proves that nutritious and healthy vegetables can be produced in your own home.

When I was an agriculture student in college, they taught us organic gardening but the vegetables were being sprayed with pesticides so I knew the produce were not really organic. And I have learned from our director, Dr Michael Bengwayan that organic farming in most areas in La Trinidad cannot be practiced because of the chemical farming methods that have been done over the years. He said that the soil has become acidic and the pest that the farmers repelled from their farms will infest the organic gardens that are in close proximity.

PINE TREE have been growing and promoting organic vegetables since it started. And I only learned how to grow them when I became a PINE TREE staff. I got to learn zero chemical treatment and the minimal use fertilizers in gardening. I am very lucky to be with Dr Bengwayan’s staff because I am learning a lot. And this is one of the things why I am proud to be with PINE TREE.

Cordillera Indigenous Peoples Have Long Used Organic Farming

2009-11-21T18:54:00.000-08:00

Organic farming is a new name for an old practice among many indigenous peoples in the Cordillera region, Philippines. For many years, indigenous peoples called Igorots, maintained ricefields fertilized with composted pig manure called "lumeng". This is mixed with rice straw and during planting, the manure is spread in the ricefields together with wild sunflower. (Tithanium divesifolium). The Igorots also have been using the nitrogen-fixing algae, an aquatic fern to help fertilize their rice with nitrogen before scientists claimed they discovered it.

In the homes of Igorots are home gardens which are a mixture of vegetables,medicinal plants and spices.

It is sad however that these indigenous sustainable practices are being lost to cash crop industry. PINE TREE is one of the few NGOs in the region still promoting homegardens and organic gardening.

Michael A. Bengwayan, Ph.D
Director
PINE TREE

Hunger Awaits Filipino Families

2009-10-10T19:51:00.001-07:00

Where Two Typhoons Struck - Philippines

Hunger Awaits Filipino Families

By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

Image
Manila, Philippines (October 5, 2009) – The Philippines will face nationwide hunger starting the end of this year and will worsen by the first quarter of 2010 because of the destruction wrought by typhoons Ketsana (Ondoy) and Parma (Pepeng), the United Nations warned.

Paolo Mattei, UN World Food Program (WFP) regional officer for Asia said the country should prepare for possible widespread shortage of food after inspection was carried out. Two powerful typhoons in four regions of the country ripped through the Philippines destroying thousands of hectares of rice and corn.

Right after the warning, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered that rice will be imported to meet the impending food shortage even though rice importation in the past has often resulted in corruption like kickbacks and smuggling.

Billions Worth of Food Destroyed

Mr. Mattei traveled with agriculture secretary Arthur Yap who said almost 150 million dollars worth of rice and corn were destroyed in the Cagayan and Ilocos regions alone.

The Cagayan region, made up of the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya and Batanes, is the country’s largest corn and rice grower. The expected harvest for this quarter, Yap said, is all but gone.

An estimated 400,000 metric tons of rice and 300,000 metric tons of corn have just been lost, Yap said.

In the province of Isabela, the nation’s largest corn grower, all of the corn planted was wiped out by Typhoon Parma, he added.

Agriculture infrastructure worth more than 30 million dollars were destroyed as well, and the government is hard pressed to come out with funds to mitigate the impact of such losses, Yap said.

Besides the Cagayan and Ilocos Regions, typhoon Parma wrecked havoc in the Cordillera, Central, Southern Tagalog and Bicol regions, displacing 170,000 families more besides the 2 two million families already made homeless earlier by Typhoon Ketsana.

Diseases on the Rise

The agony and personal loss of the thousands of Filipino families made victims by the storms are being made more painful by the fact that not only are many hungry, without enough clothes and belongings, but also sick and without enough medicine.

Red Cross Chief Richard Gordon said thousands are sick of colds, diarrhea, influenza, injuries caused by the evacuation, and fungal diseases caused by long exposure to the dirty water when people escaped the floods.

“There is medicine, but it is not enough, we need more and we are pleading to the international community to come to our aid”, he said.

Already, Canada, the US, European Union, Australia, Japan have poured millions of dollars to assist the impoverished country run by leaders perceived by many citizens as corrupt.

Majority of those sick are women, elderly and children and their immunity system is gradually deteriorating, he added.

The spread of diseases has been rapid, he noted, because thousands are crammed in limited spaces of evacuation centers, and there is widespread problem of water and sanitation.

“Toilets are limited, as well as water for washing and bathing”, 56 years old Inciang Denas said, who took a bath only once while many have not taken one yet.

“There are no separate toilet for women and toiletries like tissue paper, hand disinfectant and soap are nowhere to be found”, cried, Nancy Hista,

In many places, the stench of dead animals still lingers as well as the thousands of tons of waste and garbage that remains uncollected.

Hundreds of Flooded Villages Still Unreached

As the government struggles to cope with the gigantic task of evacuating, feeding, treating and rehabilitating towns that have been flooded, hundreds of villages in 26 provinces are still submerged, and thousands of isolated people have yet to receive relief and supplies.

According to Red Cross disaster expert Rene Sarmiento, many of these villages have not been reached basically because of lack of appropriate transportation like motorized rubber boats.

“Rubber boats cannot travel against flood waters with strong undercurrents, we need pump boats or rubber boats with motors”, he said.

Many of the rescue efforts done by boats were done by people with private yachts and personal speedboats.

Many villages also have become incommunicable because power and communication lines were cut, Sarmiento said.

“We lost contact with many local leaders and residents”, he said.

Blame Game

The disaster that struck the Philippines has made many people angry, especially the victims who lament how the government has been caught unprepared by the calamities.

The government, despite all its excuses, will be remembered for its corrupt and wasteful spending while no preparation has seriously ever been done to deal with a disaster of this magnitude.

However, it is the people, especially the rich and the government planners, who should share the blame. The country’s forests have been cut to almost just 20 per cent now from its original 75 million hectares of forests by the few elite rich families, many of whom are politicians. This has contributed to global warming.

Urban planners, likewise, have not looked into the probable environmental impacts of their plans that have been used to construct roads, housing, drainages, canals and sewer lines.

Garbage generated, especially by the many poor, find their way to rivers and canals and the government does not have an effective solid waste management programme

However, If at all, the two typhoons have taught the Filipinos a thing or two about caring for the environment. This time, hopefully, the Filipinos will learn after their bitter lesson.

Michael A. Bengwayan is a Journalist and environmental specialist based on Manila. He can be contacted through youth_campaign@iolteam.com.

My Family Is In My Scrapbooks

2009-10-01T11:54:00.000-07:00

My Family Is In My Scrapbooks

By MICHAEL A. BENGWAYAN

Baguio City, Philippines – Where did you last see yourself and your family enjoying a happy get-together or bowing your heads in reverence to a passing relative?

For me, it is in my scrapbooks. They contain my family. A dried flower, a pressed rose petal, photos of kids with impish looks, a postcard from an unknown place, faded drawings of my grandparents chanting prayers—they are magic touchstones in my scrapbook that keep those I love with me forever.

I always love making scrapbooks. Once in elementary, I had the best one in my class.

Scrapbooks can be in the mind but it is best when you can hold and see them. You can’t do that to your memory.

Once, I thought of my father’s death. It seemed as if, everywhere I went, something awoke painful memories—the oil of his 1950 Ford clunker, the deck of cards which accompanied him for Russian poker and his piercing smile. But the memories are best preserved in my scrapbooks—when he hit a homer, the time hr brought me my first barbershop and when we grabbed frogs for dinner at a nearby creek.

Make Something Memorable

In making scrapbooks, remember that you are doing something once that might be turned into a family tradition. Choose family ceremonies for scrapbooks, they provide some of the most cherished memories.

I used to have a small fire outside our yard every evening of weekends and gather my children. While they roast sweet potato, sausages and burn marshmallows over the embers I read them stories of great and infamous men and people of the world—of Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Kemal Ataturk, the wars between Mesopotamia and Greece and even the Peking Man.

Those stories are one reason our family outings remain so memorable. We have photos of those evenings. I have a burned page of the history book I read pasted in my scrapbook

To make the ordinary unforgettable requires only that we look at everyday events with eyes open to the symbolism they hold as a metaphor of love. Whether it’s lighting the first fire during the cold months or going for a forest hike on summer, it becomes memorable when we do it and capture it on scrapbooks because we do it with appreciation and self-ceremony.

Lock In Special Moments

Having nearly lost my life three times, I have learned to make an effort to capture the lovely moments of my life. Whenever I sense that a moment is perfect, I take a photo or pick up an object—a stone, leaf, flower, -- that represents that moment and take it home. I mark the object, putting the date, place and time of the even and add it to my scrapbook.

When my only son was born, for instance and it was his first time to be bathed by my wife in an open tub in our yard with a friendly sunshine, I captured the pungent smell of the soap and water, of the sun’s warmth on the baby’s face and his shrieks—all in my handy-cam and camera. The videotape and the photos are in my scrapbooks bringing to mind happy awareness that on that day, everything seemed perfect and free.

It is especially important to help children lock in their memories, because they seldom have long term recall of early experiences. You can do this by letting them write what they remember or by writing down what you have witnessed and recalling it to them after a few years.

Collect Reminders

My early childhood friend who soon became my assistant for 15 years in doing forest conservation work in the Philippines, now in Canada, keeps in his pocket a key holder that contains a fossilized insect. It was given by his father. The fossil reminds him where his great grandparents came from, Sagada—a beautiful tourist-frequented town north of the Philippines which has giant limestone formations with fossils.

“I remember my hometown and my parents when I feel the small stone in my pocket. I am reminded how much we were loved by my parents”, he quipped.

Special things mean special people and special l memories. Think carefully before you throw away drawings, letters, pictures, objects, postcards, greetings cards, call cards, or toys.

They maybe your children’s first scribbling, drawing or property. Don’t assume because you are not interested at 25, in keeping family treasures, that you’ll feel the same way later in life...

It is also important to invest in future memories. For instance, knowing that it will be your parents’ anniversary, prepare an occasion, a bunch of flowers or candies. Give it to them and capture the surprise and happiness in their faces with a picture and a petal, leaf or wrapping from the flowers or chocolates.

You may never know if you will be around or they will be around for the next anniversary.

Into everyone’ life comes such opportunities. Sometimes, it is a simple thing—a parent’s decision on a lovely morning, forego chores and the laundry to walk around the neighborhood with her daughter. Or an impulsive visit to sick neighbor you have never been in conversation with.

It’s the composite of such moments when you take time for another person that creates a kind of memory collage. Bits of kindness stick to pieces of caring and they’re all pasted together to form beautiful memories—and a scrapbook. /30

Rapid Composting and Vermiculture Training

2009-09-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

PINE TREE wil be conducting a training on rapid decomposition using natural decomposers and vermiculture for VIRAC household heads on October 27-29. Emphasis will be given on century bugs like springheads, Isopods, colembola and Demaptera as decomposers and on the earthworm african night crawler. Lectures and demonstrations will be given by Dr. Bengwayan

Community-Supported Agricultural Training for OSYs Cut

2009-09-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

The number of participants to the training course on "Alternative Organic Off-Season Vegetable Training" slated from October 4 to December 15 has been cut from 30 to just seven because funds intended for the said training has not been sourced. From the original applications of 62 to the accepted number of 30, only seven will be able to be supported accommodated to the training.

The Training Needs Assessment (TNA) earlier conducted shall be verified once more in light of the threats from the World Trade Organization that China's open importation to the Philippines is becoming more and more a reality. Sooner rather than later, local vegetables will have nowhere to go since these have no export capability (they are not globally competitive in terms of pesticide hazard safety).

The impending need to introduce homegardens, permaculture and alternative agric-ecology enterprises for farmers are becoming more real and demanding.

The Out of School Youth (OSY) participants are requested to see Mr. Emmanuel Aranas in preparation for the training course.

Again, our apologies to earlier OSYs who were ensured of the training slots. Note that we are doing are best to look for funds to sustain our training activities. We hope for your understanding and consideration.

Thank you once again.

Michael A. Bengwayan

Responses to Readers' Questions

2009-09-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

What is Apisang nuts and what makes it a viable source of alternative fuel?

The apisang or petroleum nut is an endemic tree in the Philippine growing mostly in mossy forests like that of Benguet. Its fruit has high contents of heptane e-pine and dihydroterpene whichg are components of gasoline and kerosene.

2.What are the uses of Apisang nuts as a traditional product?

It is used as a traditional medicine especially for stomachache, wounds, and joint pains.

3.What are the uses of Apisang nuts as a source of alternative energy?
It is used as cooking fuel for gas stove, lighting when put in petrol lamps, for drying crops like rice, corn, legumes, tobacco and for heating homes.

4.What is the best method of propagating Apisang nuts? Through use of seeds but there is a trick in doing it. It is described in the technoguide.e
5.How much is the initial investments in the propagation of Apisang nuts? A thousand pesos would b enough.
6.What is the percentage of fuel recovery in Apisang nuts when treated in fuel processing? When you use steam distillation you get 80 to 90 per cent of the oil.
7.How much is the probable income that can be generated in Apisang nuts production? I have not done a study on that but it would be financially gainful.
8.What is the rate of return of investments in Apisang nuts production? Perhaps about 400 %.

2009-09-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

Press Release

Farmers Planting Petroleum Nut At Mount Data National Park

By Emmanuel Aranas

Bauko, Mountain Province --- Farmers within the Mount Data National Park led by former Mountain Province governor Sario Malinias are planting thousands of petroleum nut (Pittosporum resineferum) trees within the national sanctuary.

They intend to reforest most of the 5,512 once mossy forest which has been laid bare by vegetable farming. Petroleum nut is endemic at Mount Data but it has been lost due to commercial vegetable farming.

They are being assisted by Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan who have worked in producing thousands of petroleum nut trees and have started extracting oil for biofuel from the tree. Dr. Bengwayan is the director of the Cordillera Ecological Education, Training, Research and Information Centre known as PINE TREE, a non-profit organization working against environmental decay and poverty.

According to ex gov. Malinias, many Bauko farmers received training from PINE TREE in an effort to plant petroleum nut to serve the energy needs of rural farmers in cooking, lighting, heating and drying.

He said they are preparing to attain a sustainable and efficient source of clean fuel for the future because fossil fuel such as diesel oil, kerosene and gasoline will soon be depleted and will turn very expensive.

The petroleum nut caught national attention when it was bared by Dr. Bengwayan to several newspapers and national television channels that it is the country’s most promising biofuel source.

Already, seedlings have been distributed to as far as Bicol, Zambales, and Bulacan. Besides Bauko, the Benguet town of Kapangan has planted the most seedlings that have been donated by PINE TREE.

The Japanese environmental group ENECON Japan has signified its interest to plant the tree and extract its oil. ENECON Supervisor Takashi Kato bared that he is asking ENECON top management in Japan to go into petroleum nut venture here in Benguet.

PINE TREE has already proven that the oil can be used for cooking using a gravity type kerosene stove and for lighting using a home-made peteol-lamp. This was demonstrated to GMA 7 television crew Kapuso that traveled all the way from Manila to film the project.

PINE TREE is engaged in fabricating lamps and stoves that will be used by rural homes utilizing petroleum nut oil as fuel with the assistance of the British-based Ashden Sustainable Energy Program/30

Growing Energy for Rural Development

2009-09-23T01:54:00.000-07:00

Inquirer Northern Luzon
Growing fuel for rural dev’t

By Maurice Malanes
Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inquirer Northern Luzon
First Posted 01:54:00 08/19/2009

Filed Under: Alternative energy, Environmental Issues, Forest and forest management

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet, Philippines—When environmental scientist Michael Bengwayan and his staff succeeded where government scientists had failed in propagating an upland petroleum-rich tree, he had in mind forsaken rural communities.

“Rural communities must learn to propagate this indigenous tree, extract its fuel and use it to spur their own development,” he says.

Bengwayan, executive director of the Pine Tree, a nongovernment ecological education, training, research and information center in La Trinidad, Benguet, was referring to the “petroleum nut” or resin cheesewood (Pittosporum resinferum).

The plant, which is native to the Cordillera and other upland areas in the Philippines and a few other countries such as China, has an octane rating of 54, compared to jatropha’s 41 to 43. Fossil fuel has an octane rating of 91.

Octane rating is a measure of the ability of a liquid motor fuel, such as gasoline, to prevent pre-ignition or knocking. Fuels with higher octane rating are less likely to cause knocking.

Fuel for countryside

Bengwayan and his technicians discovered how to extract oil from the petroleum nut fruit, which, they said, could be used for cooking, lighting and running simple machines and gadgets, such as water pumps and grinders.

For cooking, petroleum nut oil is not only more efficient and cheaper than firewood or charcoal. Three to five trees can yield about 15 liters of oil per harvest, and since harvest is twice a year, these amount to 30 liters, which a family can use for cooking for three to four months, says Bengwayan.

Fifteen to 20 trees can already supply a family’s year-round cooking fuel needs.

Three parts of petroleum nut oil, however, have to be blended with one part of kerosene if used for cooking.

Once it becomes popularized as cooking fuel, petroleum nut oil can free upland people from cutting trees for firewood or charcoal. This can help save and enable critical forests and watersheds to regenerate, Bengwayan says.

For lighting, two parts of petroleum nut oil can be mixed with one part of kerosene to fuel a Petromax lamp. But petroleum nut oil need not be blended with anything if used for a simple oil lamp.

As water pump fuel, petroleum nut oil can enable upland residents to draw water from lower elevations for irrigation or household use.

The possibilities that petroleum nut oil can do to propel rural industries are endless, says Bengwayan. Upland folk can use the tree oil for blacksmithing, food processing, milling grains, threshing rice and grinding reeds, grasses and weeds for compost, among other things.

With its higher octane, petroleum nut oil can also be tapped as alternative fuel for vehicles.

But Bengwayan is keen on propagating the plant for simple industries in neglected rural communities than promoting it as alternative fuel for vehicles, which only a few rural residents can afford.

This, he says, is in consonance with his organization’s mission of fighting poverty and environmental decay through scientific research and innovations.

Community control

But rural communities must secure and take control over this highly priced tree, which, Bengwayan says, is a rare species also under threat from biopirates.

For this to happen, they must learn the basics of propagating and planting the tree through seed-banking, extracting the oil and finally documenting these, he says.

“Documenting the tree’s traditional and new uses is the communities’ means of protection against outsiders who may attempt to patent its properties and uses,” he says.

Under patent rules, applicants can only seek patents for those that are new. So outsiders cannot patent uses or properties which communities have already discovered and documented.

Bengwayan says the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) can help communities protect their endemic resources through documentation before “biopirates” come in.

The Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act and Article 8(j) of the United Nations Convention of Biological Diversity protect traditional knowledge against those who seek to steal the resources of indigenous communities and its accompanying traditional uses.

As a rare species, petroleum nut is best propagated through seeds.

The Forest Research Institute of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has succeeded in propagating petroleum nut through cutting, using tissue culture.

But Bengwayan discourages this because taking the branches of the few remaining petroleum nut trees in the forests for tissue-culture will all the more lead to their extinction.

He says the best way is to propagate the oil tree through seeds and bring back the seedlings to the forests.

Propagating the seeds, however, is challenging and it requires patience. Bengwayan and his technicians almost gave up in their experiment of propagating oil tree through seeds in 2005.

But just as when they almost lost their patience, the petroleum nut seeds they sowed began to germinate after almost three months. “We found out the seed of this tree had a long dormancy (temporary cessation of growth or metabolism),” he says.

They lost no time in propagating petroleum nut seeds starting 2006, securing these in nurseries.

They have since propagated more than 30,000 seedlings, which they have scheduled to give to some 23 farmers in the upland towns of Kibungan and Kapangan in Benguet. These will be planted during the rainy season.

Updates on Petroleum Nut

2009-09-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

To all who wrote asking for info on petroleum nut. Please bear with me. I am on travel, I will put up all the updates September 24 Thursday tomorrow. menawhile for the facts I can recall in our technoguide. those asking how much oil would be produced: For every 15 kg of ripe fruits, 40 cl of expelled oil can be extracted. Some 400 liters can be harvested from a fully grown tree every year. This can be used directly as lighting fuel in petrolam. To use it for cooking in kerosene stove, it can be mixed with kerosene at a ratio of 3:1 (petroleum oil:kerosene). If you let it undergo isoterification process, try several blending fuels. Someone asked if you have to mix hexane, the oil from, the fruit is hexane itself.

There are five varieties discovered. Seeds from each fruit range from 5 to 21. You get the oil from the fruit not the seeds, thus, you get more oil rather than plantintg Jatropha curcas. the octane rating of the oil is 54 much higher than Jatropha which is only 43.

Save the Sunflowers

2009-07-06T00:27:00.000-07:00

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view/20090706-214022/Stop-using-sunflowers-for-compostStop%20using%20sunflowers%20for%20compost%20-%20INQUIRER_net%2C%20Philippine%20News%20for%20Filipinos.mht

Miracle tree can produce fuel

2009-07-04T18:31:00.000-07:00

Link to article in Sunstar

Benguet finds oil treasure in ‘petroleum nut’

2009-07-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

Link to article in Philippine Daily Inquirer

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:26:00 07/02/2009

Filed Under: Alternative energy, Energy, Oil & Gas - Upstream activities

LA TRINIDAD, Bebguet -- Agriculturists and villagers are propagating seedlings of a “petroleum nut” locally known as apisang which, they say, could be an alternative source of fuel and energy.

Michael Bengwayan, an agriculturist, said the oil extracted from the nut could be used for cooking and lighting.

More than 30,000 seedlings have been produced since 2007, he said. The first batch was planted by 23 farmers in Kapangan and Kibungan towns.

Agriculture scientists see the nut, or resin cheesewood (scientific name Pittosporum resiniferum), as a source of sustainable fuel in the Cordillera and the answer to India’s jatropha (Jatropha curcas), which is now being promoted by biodiesel advocates all over the world.

“Why does the government have to spend P125 million for jatropha when we have our own source of alternative fuel?” asked Bengwayan in a press forum here.

He presented research results on the nut that showed its prospect as an alternative fuel that, he said, could energize rural households.

Bengwayan, also a director of the Pine Tree, a non-profit organization working on ecological education, training, research and information, said the nut has a higher rate of octane, which was more combustible than jatropha.

The Benguet State University is doing research on areas where the apisang trees thrive, the germination of the seeds, multiplication of the seedlings and their sustainability, Bengwayan said.

The tree is endemic to the Philippines and is believed to be the country’s “most promising biofuel treasure, which could provide energy to rural areas and reduce global warming,” he said.

It thrives in Benguet, Nueva Vizcaya, Mt. Province, and Ifugao and is also known locally as hanga (Tagalog), dingo (Mt. Province) and sagaga (Abra).

Bengwayan said the extracted oil could be used for cooking when blended with kerosene (with a ratio of three parts oil and one part kerosene) and for lighting.

The oil could also be used to cure stomachache and prevent skin infection, he said.

Propagating the seedlings can help contribute to the region’s carbon sink, a process that helps reduce carbon dioxide in the environment and reduce global warming, he said.

Bengwayan said more seedlings would be distributed to farmers and villagers.

“They may sell the oil if they have an excess supply. But the important factor here is we are able to save and not destroy the environment,” he said.

Bengwayan’s group has established a seed bank in the village of Longlong here to keep the seedlings. It has been training farmers to maintain their own seed bank. Desiree Caluza, Inquirer Northern Luzon

PINE TREE Holds Press Conference for Petroleum Nut

2009-07-02T23:50:00.000-07:00

Want More Nutritious Food and Income? Plan a Mixed Legume-Leafy-Spice Home Garden

2009-06-24T22:41:00.000-07:00

Staying Home: Father and Son

2009-06-24T01:48:00.000-07:00

Staying Home: Father and Son
By Michael A. Bengwayan

Writer, Journalist - Philippines

Yesterday as I was pulling our cows to the barn with my 18-year-old son at our small house in Longlong, La Trinidad, Philippines, he told me, “Dad, school days are near and it rains every day. What a time to start school.” I stopped and wondered. What a time indeed.
Even for me who has to end my vacation and go back to work. It will be days involving deadlines, uncooperative sources or spats with editors—I grouse and rant thinking about it.

For more than a month, I did nothing but stay home with my son. We worked from eight to five laying poles to stretch hog wires to keep off stray dogs from the garden.

More than that, we talked. Talked like we never did before. He talked about how his math teachers seemed uglier and meaner than usual. How the school restrooms smelled more and more like ashtrays and that the world was fast coming to an end before he reached college.

I told him of the funeral pyres in Baktaphur, Nepal where they burn the poor corpses with a handful of rice straw and kick them down the river only to be ripped apart by waiting monkeys. Of working with the Harijans in Pune, Maharahstra, India where dead children are peddled for a bite of food, and of the dead and the dying in our own Mindanaoland where Muslim children are raised as young guns to fight invisibly against war-tested Philippine troopers.

My work calls for me to travel around the Philippines and some countries most of the time. When he was born, I was in Ireland finishing a PhD; I stayed in other countries as he grew and every time I came home, I knew we both hankered for talk.

We talked and said that cynicism was our fault and the rest was the fault of the generation that lay before him (me included). Maybe the world would be better off had it not been for people who went ahead of him, he said. I could only nod in agreement, knowing indeed, there is truth to the innocent thought he passed.

In between gasps and a drink of water I glanced at my son. Fast growing, eager to go out and face the world, whatever the world has to give. I never thought of it much, as work has always preoccupied me.

For many of us, work lays claim to our time and emotion, possessing us completely as any spouse or child. But those of us who think we have hard jobs can learn a lot from those who really do.

I wondered how the people I saw working against nature in Quezon to pull out dying and dead victims from the typhoon's wrath get the strength to do so. I wonder how some people counsel rape victims, investigate murder scenes, operate on dying patients, then have the energy to cheer their kids' local basketball team on Saturdays. I now wondered how, my son, battered an defeated with his sepak takraw team go home and smile to say, “The game was great dad!”

If the rest of us can't keep the stress of work from oozing over and staining the rest of life, how can they? More to the point: If they can, why on earth can't we?

When we separate the perspective of our silent privacy to that of working for life, we lose perspective. Other people build walls and maintain distance. My good friend Dr. Charles Cheng sometimes calls me to have coffee with him. We don't talk much. He asks how my day was, I ask him the same question in return. Then we let the dying minutes pass with no word exchanged. He has a bad day. I keep mum. Keeping up walls is the secret to coping with the pain when we feel defeated, lost, and unsure.

This is a lesson for me whose work is not a matter of life and death, but has the ability to use us up nonetheless. The only way to get the work done is to come up for air periodically. To turn off the computer, even on a deadline, and be there for your wife when she comes home tired from work. To say hell with the writing job you're organizing in your mind even as your editor keeps calling you, and smile to your children when they arrive home.

So we can all go out again tomorrow and do it all again.

I am happy I spent my vacation with son.

“I had a nice vacation with you, Dad,” my son says pulling the last cow inside the barn. “So did I,” I said. “Let's go home, dinner is waiting.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michael Bengwayan is a journalist based in Manila, the Philippines. He specializes in environmental, developmental, and related issues.

Organic Gardening Threatening Bees in Luzon, Philipines

2009-06-24T01:37:00.000-07:00

The apiculture industry in north Luzon is in danger of declining because of organic gardening. Does this sound crazy? Read on. This is because organic gardeners are cutting all visible wild sunflower plants (Tithanium diversilfolium) which they widely compost for fertilizer. As a result, the bees in this region that depend heavily on nectar and pollen produced by the sunflowers, have difficulty foraging for food.

The Cordillera Ecological Education, Training, Research and Information Center (PINE TREE) is helping remedy this problem.It is planting sunflower cuttings in the mountains especially where there are no farmers. I am calling for people concerned to help us in this regard.

Michael

NGO Leads Fight to Conserve and Protect Petroleum Nut

2008-12-16T21:15:00.000-08:00

NGO Leads Fight to Conserve and Protect Petroleum Nut
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1209357937787&pagename=Zone-English-HealthScience%2FHSELayout

By Michael A. Bengwayan

Director - PINE TREE

Petroleum nut is believed to be the country's most promising biofuel treasure.

A petroleum-rich tree native to the Philippines and believed to be the country's most promising biofuel treasure is being conserved as it has the potential to provide rural energy and to reduce global warming.
The tree, which is native to only a few provinces in the Philippines and a few other countries in the world, is in danger of falling into the hands of biopirates to enrich only a few profit-oriented multinational companies.

The tree called "petroleum nut" or resin cheesewood and scientifically called Pittosporum resiniferum produces inedible fruits that are octane rich, even richer than the oft-boasted shrub Jatropha curcas of India, which is now being planted in millions of hectares by biodiesel advocates all over the world.

Tree Threatened by Biopirates

To prevent the depletion of the tree from its natural habitat by deforestation or from joining the long list of pirated botanical treasures of the Philippines, a non-profit organization called PINE TREE set up by the New York City-based Echoing Green Foundation, is leading the battle to save the tree and put its ownership right where it belongs - into the hands of the indigenous tribes of the Cordillera region.

PINE TREE is an educational, training, research, and information center on ecology.

"We fear that if we do not put rightful claim to the tree as well as start germplasm protection, collection, and production, biopirates will grab the tree and file patents on the use of its properties," said Richard Botengan, PINE TREE’s program leader, who is based in Canada doing liaison work for the NGO.

The Philippines, one of the most critical "bio-hotspots" in the world is losing its natural richness not only by natural habitat destruction but also by biopirates.

History of Biopiracy

"The project helps reduce global warming, and the local peoples have a sustainable source of income."
The rape of the Philippine forests is nothing new, but the plunder and theft of its rich biodiversity has just begun. Its forest resources, minerals, agricultural and medicinal plants, and indigenous knowledge are being looted by monopoly companies that make millions of dollars patenting and selling plant germplasm, even to those who used to own it.
The first case of foreign biopiracy in the Philippines involved a soil collected and isolated from a cemetery in Iloilo by Filipino scientist Abelardo Aguilar, then working for the American company Eli Lilly. An organism in this soil was found to produce an antibiotic, named Ilosone in honor of the province of Iloilo, a well known drug popularly known as erythromycin. Aguilar never received a single cent from his company even after the Philippine government's intervention.

After this first brush with biopirates, more Philippine plants became prey. Two important ingredients of the Filipino diet, namely the "ampalaya" (Mamantia mordica) and "talong" (Solanum melongena), are now the exclusive property of the US National Institute of Health (NIH), the US Army, and the New York University. These parties are conducting intensive studies on the three crops for their potential in curing HIV and thrombosis. The crops are under the US patent numbers US 5484889, JP 65011089, and EP 552257.

Tree to Reduce Global Warming

"Our project trains local peoples to plant petroleum nut and lets them engage in carbon deals."
PINE TREE has planted more than 5,000 seedlings of three endemic petroleum nut varieties from different germplasms that are in its seedbank. These trees will be planted in communal forests to ensure the continuous existence of the tree for years to come.
"Right now, PINE TREE has set up nurseries and is propagating thousands of petroleum nut seeds and cuttings from four endemic varieties. These trees will be planted in ancestral forests of the indigenous peoples to ensure the continuous existence of the tree for years to come," added Botengan.

In 2007, PINE TREE won the prestigious Toyota Environmental Award from the Toyota Motor Company. The award, amounting to USD75,000, is given to a non-profit organization from any country that can present the best program to protect biodiversity while promoting technology for the rural poor. PINE TREE bested more than 500 organizations from 78 countries worldwide.

The award is now being used to preserve, protect, conserve, and mass-produce petroleum nut, not merely because of its oil potential but also as a carbon sink.

Stressing that those to benefit first and directly from the project should be the indigenous peoples, PINE TREE staff is training local villagers to plant, care for, manage, and extract the oil from the tree. The oil will be used for cooking, lighting, heating, running small machines (like water pumps and grinders), and drying.

PINE TREE says conservation of the tree is critical as it is only found in some four to five provinces.
PINE TREE has slated the first training program for villagers on June 4-7, 2008 to benefit 150 farmers, at the National Training Center of the Agricultural Training Institute (NTC-ATI) of the Philippines.
Dobbels Wallang, project assistant of PINE TREE said, "Our project trains local peoples to plant petroleum nut and lets them engage in carbon deals. By this, the project helps reduce global warming, it lessens pressure on forests, which are usually cut for fuel wood, and the local peoples have a sustainable source of income."

Under the Kyoto Protocol, pollution-emitting companies can be taxed higher, fined, or closed. But if these companies are able to finance reforestation and afforestation projects in developing countries that absorb the carbon dioxide they emit, they are allowed to operate because of their corporate responsibility to reduce global warming and to promote countryside development.

Carbon trading deals involving tree planting in developing countries will provide greater benefits than just improving the environment. They could sharply reduce poverty among the rural poor and provide businesses with an inexpensive way to offset their carbon emissions.

Fuel Potential

By chemical analysis, petroleum nut is better than India's Jatropha curcas.
By chemical analysis, petroleum nut is better than India's Jatropha curcas. According to Joseph Gonsalves, consultant of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and author of "An Assessment of the Biofuels Industry in India" published in 2006, Jatropha has a low octane rating of 43. Octane is a hydrocarbon found in petroleum. The Octane rating is how much the fuel can be compressed before it spontaneously ignites.
Chemist Sheryl Lontoc of the Chemistry Department of De La Salle University (DLSU), which is assisting PINE TREE says that their chemical analysis of petroleum nut reveals that it has an octane rating of 54. According to Lontoc, this means the fuel from the tree has a higher potential of running engines, and by all indications, petroleum nut is far better than Jatropha curcas. Fossil fuel has an octane rating of 91.

According to studies made by the Forest Research Institute of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) of the Philippines, petroleum-nut oil contains 46 percent of gasoline-type components such as heptane and dihydroterpene.

A single tree can yield 15 kg of green fruits, which can produce 80 cm3 of oil. The residue, ground up and distilled with steam, can yield 73 cm3 more. Planting the petroleum nut trees would yield 45 tons of fruit or 2,500 gallons of petroleum oil per acre per year.

Earlier studies done by Dr. Pamela Fernandez of the University of the Philippines at Los Banos indicate that a single fruit yields 0.1 to 3.3 ml of oil, averaging about 1.3 ml. In general, the bigger the fruit, the larger the seed and the greater the oil content.

The Petroleum nut fruit has many traditional uses. These include its use as a cure for many conditions (such as skin diseases, common colds, and muscle pains) and to ease stomach pain.

In the Benguet province, the tree is called apisang, abkol, abkel, and langis in the vernacular. It thrives in Mt. Pulis, Ifugao, and in the headwaters of the Agno and Chico River Basins. It is also found in the Bicol provinces, Palawan, Mindoro, Nueva Ecija, and Laguna.

Conservation Critical

PINE TREE says conservation of the tree is critical as it is only found in some four to five provinces. "It is difficult to find the tree nowadays," said Delmar Litilit, the environmental officer of PINE TREE, "If one does, there are often just a few trees in a small forest fragment," he added.

In 2006, China told CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) that the species of petroleum nut it has should be placed on the protected species list because it is rapidly disappearing. PINE TREE believes the Philippine government should do the same sooner rather than later, the tree may go the way of the Dodo.

Sources:

Duke, James A. "Handbook of Energy Crops." (1983). Accessed 26 May 2008.

Gonsalves, Joseph B. "An Assessment of the Biofuels Industry in India." United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva. 18 Oct. 2006. Accessed 26 May 2008.

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Michael A. Bengwayan is the director of PINE TREE, a non-profit organization working on ecological education, training, research and information. He is a Fellow of the Ford Foundation, Echoing Green Foundation, and Reinhard Mohn Foundation. He has a PhD and a master's degree in development studies, environmental science and rural development, respectively.

2001 Echoing Green Fellow Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

2008-12-15T09:35:00.000-08:00

http://www.echoinggreen.org/fellows/michael-bengwayan

Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan
2001

Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan
PINE TREE

La Trinidad, Philippines

Arts, Culture, Humanities, Civil and Human Rights, Community Improvement & Economic Development, Education & Youth Leadership, Environment, Food, Nutrition, Agriculture, Non-Violence, Public Service

The Bold Idea:
Fighting poverty and environmental decay through social change.

Biography:

Post Ph.D. Public Policy, JFK School of Public Policy, Harvard University (Ford Foundation Fellow)

Ph.D. Development Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland (EU Fellow)

MS Environmental Studies, Leuven University, Belgium

MS Rural Development, BSU, Philippines

Diploma in Advanced Journalism, Kalmar University, Sweden, SIDA Fellow

Author: Intellectual and Cultural Property Rights of the Indigenous and Tribal peoples of Asia

Author: Dam the Rivers, Damn the People, San Roque Dam

Michael Bengwayan is Growing Energy on Trees

2008-12-15T09:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.echoinggreen.org/blog/energy-from-petroleum-nuts

Michael Bengwayan is Growing Energy on Trees

Dr. Michael Bengwayan, a 2001 Echoing Green Fellow, wrote in to let us know his organization, PINE TREE was recently awarded a $75,000 prize from Toyota’s Environmental Activities Grant Program. The award will help Michael provide energy to farms and households in the Cordillera Region of the Philippines.

A remarkable twist to this community energy project is that he’ll be manufacturing biofuel from Pittosporum resiniferum (also known as the petroleum nut). This plant is indigenous to the Philippines and according to Wikipedia, the fruits (even green ones) can be used for illumination as torches or candles. The incandescent property is due to the volatile oil of the fruit, which also makes it excellent source material for biofuels.

Congratulations Michael!

2001 Echoing Green Fellow Dr. Michael Bengwayan Wins World Bank Award

2008-12-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.echoinggreen.org/fellows/michael-bengwayan

2001 Echoing Green Fellow Dr. Michael Bengwayan Wins World Bank Award

Congratulations to 2001 Echoing Green Fellow Dr. Michael Bengwayan! Last week, Michael’s organization, Pine Tree, won the World Bank Ecological Award. The award, worth one million pesos, has been presented to Pine Tree to prevent further dengue infestation in La Trinidad, Benguet, in the Philippines. The organization plans to use these funds to study the production of dengue’s natural enemies and mosquito plant repellants.

Every two years, the World Bank calls for submissions from government and non-government agencies; the focus is finding an innovative project that fosters community development in the fields of environment, livelihood and good governance. This year, more than 500 agencies applied, ninety-nine made it to the finals and only thirty-one were awarded. Our congratulations go to Michael and everyone at Pine Tree!

Michael Wins 2008 Ford Eco Grant

2008-12-15T09:27:00.000-08:00

Ford Extends Over P1M to fund Ecogrant Projects
Baker says consideration for the environment remains a top priority for Ford

http://www.ford.com.ph/servlet/ContentServer?cid=1178857387693&pagename=FPH%2FDFYArticle%2FFord-Standalone&pageid=1137383205294&site=FPH&c=DFYArticle

Makati City - October 28, 2008. Ford Group Philippines (FGP) extended P1.011 million to four grassroots-initiated environmental projects and one cultural conservation effort under the 2008 Ford Environmental and Conservation Grants program, FGP president Rick Baker disclosed recently.

Now on its ninth run, the Ford EcoGrants program stemmed from Ford’s commitment to the environment and to the community. Beyond channeling funds, Ford has built strong partnerships with individuals and organizations who share the Company’s vision of preserving natural resources, protecting national heritage and tapping the youth as development partners.

The biggest grantee this year is Pine Tree for its project, “Energizing Farm and Households through Bio-fuel Production and Extraction of Petroleum Nut.” Based in the Cordillera region, the project seeks to provide a source of energy for 75 families in Kabayan, Benguet for their lighting, cooking, heating and machine work by using the oil from Petroleum Nut. “Apart from uplifting the community’s economic and social well being, the project also seeks to contribute to the preservation of trees and forests,” explained proponent, Dr. Michael Bengwayan.

Another Ford EcoGrant recipient is the First Philippine Conservation, Inc., for its initiative, “Restoring our Forests as One Nation.” It aims to pilot a sound forest restoration program that addresses both ecological integrity and the well-being of human communities. It will tap scientists, indigenous groups, peoples’ organizations, local government units and the Protected Area Management Board to conserve the Bataan Natural Park.

Other 2008 Ford EcoGrant winners are the Maguindanaon Development Foundation, Inc., which will conserve and preserve the handicrafts of Maguindanaon women for their livelihood, as well as the sources of these handicrafts’ raw materials such as pandan, bamboo, water lily and other plants; the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) proposed by Director Theresa Mundita Lim; and the Save the Iron Wood project of Forrester Joven Tare.

Dr. Teresita R. Perez, chairperson of the Environmental Science Department of the Ateneo de Manila University, Engineer Julian Amador, director of the Energy Utilization and Management Bureau - DENR, and Cherry Ramirez, FGP assistant vice president for corporate affairs served as the 2008 Ford EcoGrants judges.

P20M for 70 Ford EcoGrant projects in nine years
Since 2000, FGP has channeled P20 million to a total of 67 projects through the Ford EcoGrants program. FGP received a total of about 500 entries throughout its nine-year run. The program formed part of Ford’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, making tangible the Company’s commitment to help address social and environmental issues.

“I have fond memories of the various projects we’ve supported through the years. I remember our company hosting the first Biofuels Caravan in February 2007 where a motorcade of several vehicles--all running on bio-fuels--travelled across the country, showing the potentials of this alternative fuel in the Philippines. I also participated in my first Philippine tree-planting activity in Rizal Park which was joined by Manila City Mayor Alfredo Lim, then Clean and Green Foundation, Inc. chair Former First Lady Amelita Ramos, and some 100 Ford employee volunteers in September 2007. I have also met some amazing people along the way like Dr. Menandro Acda of UP Los Banos who is the epitome of Filipino ingenuity with his project that made use of chicken feathers for pre-fabricated construction materials,” Baker said.

But based on the global direction and after deliberation with FGP’s board of directors and management team, Baker announced that this is the last year of the Ford EcoGrants. “We have decided to focus our CSR efforts on road safety, an advocacy that is closer to our core business,” explained Baker.

“Rest assured that consideration for the environment continues to be a top priority in our business. In fact, it has transformed the way we do business, and will always be an integral part of Ford as a company. We believe that our approach to sustainability will be one of the most important factors in both our short-term financial recovery and our long-term success,” Baker added.

Ford Group Philippines president Rick Baker (second, from left) holds the symbolic certificate representing the P1.011-million funding assistance Ford extended to five projects under the Ford Conservation and Environment Grants program. These projects are represented by (from left) Dausay Daulog of the Maguindanaon Development Foundation, Inc., Director Theresa Mundita Lim of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau-DENR Atty. Juan Quicho, Jr. of the First Philippine Conservation, Inc., and Dr. Michael Bengyawan of the Pine Tree - Cordillera Center for Ecological Education, Training, Research and Information. Forester Joven Tare of the Save the Iron Wood project failed to attend the formal EcoGrant awarding rites.

Waiting for Christmas In My Garden

2008-12-15T09:08:00.000-08:00

Waiting for Christmas in My Garden

Early each day I walk to my garden. With a teamug on hand, I scout for
poor young worms feasting on vegetables. I crush them. Not all of them
though. I'm no freak. But I want some veggies on my table too. I don't
like the idea but I have no choice.

Each day too, I take an appreciating look at the pine trees. Always
there, assuring that the world will forever be green. It is a dying
hope though, what with all the deforestation going on. But hope has
given to more hope in the past. It is happening over and over again.

Beyond the garden bunds, trobadour Jiminy crickets take a crack at the
last dusk before it is swallowed by day. They are drowned by several
birds of many kinds. It is a welcome sound.

This garden (I have several) is about 400 square meters located 50
meters from the house. Alnus japonica or what most know as Alnus,
provides shade, spreading scads of broad, hard, green leaves. Before
the garden is a huge house (as big as a local municipal building) owned
by one they call (DE) district engineer, but one who is a plain crook
to me.

I love the garden, and with the onset of every summer, I find myself
working in it constantly. There is much to be done: Weeds need to be
pulled, leaves need to be raked, dead plants need to be carted off and
piled into a compost, seeds to sow, seedlings to prick and tons more o
f
work that leave you b
athing in your sweat but feeling contented every
end of the day.

All of this—the weeding, the planting, even my interest in the garden
itself—has taken me a bit by surprise. I always had a garden before,
and always thought of myself as the gardening type. But at my age (49)
I enjoy it better. Although writing has taken years of my life.

Long rows of Sadanga sitting beans with lush leaves and heavy pods
await to be harvested. And beside them are four rows of "kalbo-oy"
sweet potato, known to be the best in the Cordillera. I have round
eggplants, red, yellow and green chillies, gray and golden suchinnis,
and red and green lettuce.

Beyond the veggies are thousands of petroleum nut trees and Calliandra
calothyrsus nitrogen fixing trees. All around are gold and yellow
marigolds that ward off most insect pests. I have grape-type red
tomatoes as well as cherry ones. These have more lycopene, commanding
three dollars a kilo in the market. But I never sell them. I give them
away to whoever asks for some.

I like sitting on the grass to watch the plants grow because it gives
me hope that tomorrow is always a better day. And as hope gives more
hope, the coming Christmas should be no different. As Christians
celebrate the fake birthday of Jesus, we are given hope once again that
God's gift --Jesus-- would make us grow to be better every day. That in
t
his world reeking with apathy, love alone could awaken love.

And like every morning in a garden, we have a new life. A gift given
again and again. This morning, this blessed morning, should be an
every Christmas morning.

Michael Bengwayan

Using Marigold and Beer as Effective Insect Pest Control

2007-10-16T23:51:00.000-07:00

Some of the things we want to share our readers are simple information on vegetable gardening based on our experiences that lessen costs and still ensure a good harvest. This time around, we are going to talk about the flower marigold and beer which we use to repel and attract destructive insect pests.

Many gardeners like to include marigold flowers in the vegetable garden to add a touch of color from this easy growing plant that performs well from spring thru summer and right into the fall season.

Other gardeners grow marigolds in the hope that they will help in the battle against destructive insects and animal pests. In our experience, we observed that indeed marigold repels cutting worms like caterpillars. We have observed that marigold are active also against repel cucumber beetles and other pests around melons, squash, and cucumbers.

With regards to beer, we control the slimy slugs that attack our seedling propagation beds with beer. It is getting cold now in our place and during early evenings, slugs show up and eat the small seedlings of crucifers like cabbages and Chinese pai tsai.

To rid the slugs, we put two cans on both ends of the propagation bed and half fill each with beer. The beer attracts the slugs at night an din the morning we have two cans full of slugs, which we throw or dispose off or by killing these. The beer is an attractant.

That's all for now. Our strawberry crops are staring to grow. We just planted our runners and so far the rains have not been frequent so we expect a good harvest from our sweet potato and chayote (Sechium edule).

Camote, Mitochondria of Indigenous Folks

2007-10-03T21:29:00.000-07:00

We planted sweet potato (Ipomea batatas) this quarter. This carbohydrate-rich tuber has provided the food needs for many generations of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines. Also, because of the strong rains and typhoons, we choose the crop because it can withstand adverse weather conditions while we wait for better weather.

The humble sweet potato... so much loved before but unfortunately young folks are shunning it because of junk fast foods.

The sweet potatop is versatile and full of vitamins, but above all, it's a very easy crop to grow.
The leafy, trailing plant will produce tubers all year round in tropical areas. It also grows well in cool, frost-free climates. Now is the perfect time to get a start, because sweet potato likes at least four to six months of warm weather to produce a good crop. By the end of the year, we expect to have about 4 tons in the one hecatre area we planted.

Firstly, we chose a warm, sunny spot and dug plenty of compost and old manure into the soil. We mounded the soil in narrow rows along the length of the beds bed. That will give the tubers a nice deep soil to develop.To get the first crop underway, we planted using cuttings from old plants and planted them just below the soil surface in the corner of the patches.

The plants were kept moist, and in a week or so, little sprouts began to appear. When they got to about 15cm long, these were snipped off and planted in mounds as cuttings about 50cm apart. In no time, roots formed and the sweet potatoes started to grow.

We did not use any commercial fertiliser. They tend to encourage too much leaf growth. Instead, we sprinkled a little sulphate of potash about every so often. It was that easy, and they're fun to grow them

El Nino and La Nina Prods Us To Zero Tillage

2007-08-21T23:52:00.000-07:00

Friends

It has been almost two months since we were able to get into our blog page. The reasons were technical and the travels that we had to undertake.

It has been raining since the middle of June and it just wiped out months of drought.

In the beginning of July we planted cabbages and succhinni. Because of the rainy season, we planted the succhini seeds in compost plastic bags and transplanted them in the field two weeks after sowing. This method allowed us not to till the soil again, which, otherwise would have been a difficult job--what with the rain and all. The planting beds were covered with black plastic mulching thus eliminating weed growth.

The potatoes were directly planted after the garden beds were fertilized with chicken manure because we ran out of compost.

After three weeks of growth, all three crops were attacked. First the potatoes was attacked by blight. We had no recourse but to spray with fungicides otherwise all the crops will be lost. Becuse it rained every day, we sprayed twice a week using a sticker called tenac so that the fungicide will stick to the plant leaves.

The cabbages were likewise afflicted with headrot but were able to prevent further damage by spraying fungicides. The succhinni fruits were also attacked but we did not spray. Some of the fruits were able to withstand the rotting and on the middle of August we were able to harvest.

What are left now are potatoes and cabbages but take not they are no longer organically grown and pesticide free. We planted a few red cabbages and onion leeks and they grew wonderfully, surviving any fungal attack. These were harvested recently and brought to the cooperative of the Benguet State University which patronizes our products.

Meanwhile, we have planted the rest of the gardens with sweet potato which grows robustly during the rainy season as well as taro or gabi. Both crops favor the rainy season. We also planted chayote, vine vegetable fruit and it is giving us so much harvest although the prices are not too high but good enough to meet our expense needs.

I have been travelling in several provinces talking to farmers on food security. It was a nice experience, a learning one. There was and impending drought on June only to be negated by sudden rush of heavy rains since the end of June. It is still raining cats and dogs daily but life has to go on...we need to go on planting. We are thankful, what more can we expect..
+

After the work, comes the reward

2007-06-10T23:18:00.000-07:00

My, it is now more than a month since my last blog. My memory did not serve me well the last time I tried to get into this net world thus, my password got lost in the cyberspace. But here we are again.

The rains have become incessantly inconvenient. It is good for one thing--for irrigation and bad for two or three things--it enhances fungal growth, washes away top soil and prevents us from doing much work.

There were 16 harvests on the succhini, done at intervals of three days each. There are still some plants left while we rid the rest by roguing--fruits started rotting because of the rain. Since we don't use fungicides, we have to let go but about 90 per cent of the fruits have been harvested. Ther brocolli will be harvested next week as well as the cabbages. The onion leeks were harvested in one day. The Romaine lettuce were harvested in 20 pickings.

All in all, a total of 880 kg of succhini were harvested while 120 kg was realized from the onion leeks. Two hundred and ten kilos were marketed out from the Romaine lettuce.

The harvests were good--some 70 per cent delivered to cooperatives and to the Benguet State University Marketing Center which provides vegetables for faculty and students of the university. The rest of 30 per cent were orders from families in the community. We prefer selling to university marketing center because they maintain strict adherence to pesticide-free products.

Well, we had our first harvests and it feels good. The working students brought home some for their use and many are thinking of starting their own gardens once they finish their training. All are enthusiastic. We are looking forward to our harvests on potato and cabbage.

Meanwhile , our seedlings are growing well and some will be planted next week. Some have been bought and our hands our really full this rainy season.

It's gonna be a wet season but better wet than upset, if we did a poor job. But we did pretty well for this first threee months, with a little prayer thrown in and a bit of Irish luck.

First Harvest

2007-05-07T04:31:00.000-07:00

Today, we harvested the first of our five major crops. The Romaine lettuce was harvested, partially, yielding some 45 kg. It was harvested by three representatives of four families who made the orders. The second crop harvested was succhinni which produced 65 kg on the first harvest. It was ordered by a local cooperative. The cooperative and our organization is holding a small trade fair on organic vegetables and ethnic or locally planted fruits, vegetables, medicinal plants and locally cooked foods.

Both crops will be harvested every two days . We are making a record of each harvest to eventually come out with a total. The second harvest will be on Wednesday.

Letuce attacked, hot chili to the rescue

2007-05-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

Our Romaine lettuce are being attacked. The degree of destruction is minimal and non-significant but we have to control it before it gets worse. The culprit is the black cutworm that lives in the soil. At night time, the worm comes out and eats the lettuce leaves, thus defoliating them and goes back to the soil. So we have to wake up early and pick off these worms at sunrise before they go back to the soil. If they do, we dig them out from the base of the lettuce plants.

To rid the lettuce of the worms, we will spray hot chili and tobacco solution tomorrow. The worms are repelled by the combined solution.

Fertilizer Topdressing Methods Used

2007-04-30T19:21:00.000-07:00

All our crops were fertilized with chicken manure and compost as basal fertilizer. Our normal procedure is that during flowering stage or 25 to 30 days after transplanting, we topdress fertilizer to supplement the basal fertilizer. This is important because the plants would be needing more nutrients as they shift to their botanical transformation as in flowering to fruiting (eg. succhinni).

We do not use inorganic fertilizers, we make use of processed chicken manure (PCM) and crumbled organic fertilizer (COF). Both are applied in three ways. First, they can be applied in between rows of the plants then covered with soil from the canals of the plots. This is is beneficial but labor intensive because you have to scrape off the top soil from the canal with a hoe and put back the soil on the plot to cover the topdressed fertilizer. Beneficial in the sense that the topsoil washed off to the plots' canals are brought back to the plants and used together with the topdressing.

The saecond method followed is by drilling PCM or COF through small holes near the plants root areas and covering it with soil. This method allows the plant to immediately use the fertilizer.

The third method is through fertigation. PCM and COF are mixed thouroughly with the water to be used in irrigation, in our case, from a deeply excavated water hole. Watering cans are used to fetch the water and applied through overhead irrigation.

All three are effective methods.

Rains and Rats

2007-04-30T05:59:00.000-07:00

It rained so hard yesterday and today that rats from the nearby mountains scampered over the fields. Using a slicker and rubber boots, I went to check on the soil traps and check dams of the vegetable plots. It rained the whole night too.

This morning, damage was observed on the succhini flowers and some fruits. It was done by the rats for sure. I applied poison baits this afternoon to ward off and kill the rats. With some prayers too.

We will not be watering for a week because of the strong rain. The succhini will be ready for harvest in two weeks time. The broccolli, cabbage and potatoes are doing well.

The seeds we sowed in our nursery have sprung up. Some 4,000 assorted nitrogen fixing (Caliandra calothyrsus, Flemingia macrophylla) and biofuel trees (Jatropha curcas, Pangomia pinnata, Pitospforum resinefirum) have been planted. We also sowed passion fruit and Spanish tomato fruits. Our hives are busy with bee activities. The bees can be seen all over the succhini plants pollinating and seeking nectar as they are attracted by the vegetables' yellow flowers.

Botanical Insecticide

2007-04-26T00:34:00.000-07:00

Today, I will describe how I prepared botanical pesticide for crawling worms and larvae that attack our crops especially cabbage and brocolli. The most destructive of these worms are cabbage butterflies, diamondback moths, leafminers and inchworms.

The botanical insecticide was prepared using half drum of water, wild sunflower (Tithanium diversifoleum) shoots, kakawate (Madre de cacao) leaves and cigarette butts. One sack of sunflower shoots and kakawate leaves were gathered. The sack was tied up so the leaves would not come out of the sack. Then the sack was immersed in the drum filled with one half drum of water. Also immersed in the water were some 100 cigarette butts gathered from smokers who included our farmer partners. A heavy stone was placed on top of the sack to prevent it from floating, after which, the drum was covered.

The plants were left to rot for two weeks. The drum was opened and the water with the decomposed decoction was allowed to pass through a screen and sieve to remove the substrates and decomposed leaf tissues. A fine mesh cloth was used to finally filter the water. One liter of this solution was mixed with 15 liters of water . This was used to spray against the worms and larva attacking the cabbages and brocolli.

The effect shows that after a few minutes, the larvae and caterpillar drop off the plants and die. The sunflower and kakawate leaves have properties that kill off the worms. The effect of both leaves is made more potent by the tar and nicotine extracts from the cigarette butts.

This is our effective, simple and inexpensive control for worms and larvae. Our warning though, the only disadavantage is that the decoction smells and the applicator should cover all his body and face to prevent the smell from sticking to his skin. But the extract is safe when in contact with the skin.
Next Time: TopDressing Fertilizer

Community Supported Agriculture in Benguet, Philippines

2007-04-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

The Community Supported Agricultural Project in Benguet, Philippines

I'm taking a frog leap since I initiated my project as I am starting my blogs way late from my activities. The project started in March. Much of the work was first done cleaning the project sites of grass, sedges and brushes. Nearly a hectare-wide land has been cleaned using sickles, grub hoes and shovels. The debris has been collected and composted with Trichoderma. About three tons of grass and different sedges have been collected. This will yield about 1.2 tons of organic fertilizer. The vegetable garden areas are located in three different sites in the project location.

Twelve students and seven farmers are working with me on the project. The number of students involved is limited as March to May are the vacation months. We expect to have 20 more students by the first semester on June.

We have planted one area of 1,000 square meters with white potato and another lot some 2,500 square meters with Scorpio cabbage and brocolli while some 700 suare meters are planted to succhini mixed with early maturing Romaine lettuce sidecropped with onion leeks. These crops were the choices of our customers.

There is no major difficulty in our activities with the exception of land clearing which is labor-intensive and limited water supply. We have solved the latter by digging 5 x 6 x 7 feet deep water holes draped with plastic to harvest water from rain and run-off from canals. The impounded water is used to irrigate the plants. Because gravity cannot be used to draw water, we irrigate overhead, manually with the use watering cans at least three times a week.

Land preparation was done manualy using grab hoes. After the land was tilled, compost, chicken manure as well as lime were spread over the land to serve as basal fertilizer and neutralize soil acidity, respectively. The soil was was tilled once more to mix the fertilizer and the lime. Plots measuring 1 meter by 20 meters were then prepared.

The succhini was planted directly at a space of one foot apart. The cabbages were transplanted to the field 25 days after sowing, with a distance of one foot per hill per row . Potato tubers were planted at the same distances. The field was irrigated through overhead system using watering cans.

For all three crops, some 1.5 tons of compost was used as basal fertilizer. No inorganic fertilizer was applied.

No pesticide are used on all crops. As of now no insect pest has attacked the succhini, lettuce and potatoes but a few diamonback moth (Plutella xylostella) are attacking the cabbages. We have prepared a botanical control of sunflower extract (Tithonia diversifolia) to be used against the pest.

Next Posting: Controlling Insect Pests

PINE TREE

2007-04-20T04:23:00.000-07:00

This is the PINE TREE Phillipines page in the Teach A Man to Fish 'Schools for Rural Entrepreneurs' blog group