From Grass Lands to Productive Corn Lands
One thing that members of the Northern Iloilo Corn Producers Association, Inc. (NICPAI) are so proud of is the conversion of the once unproductive grass lands in Sara and nearby towns into productive corn lands. This is especially true in barangays Del Castillo, Tad; Latawan, Ardemil, Malapaya, and Muvco, the mountainous areas of Sara where only a few farmers were into corn farming before 1998.
According to Delson B. Sonza, an agriculture graduate of the Western Visayas State University who specialized in agribusiness and Iloilo’s official representative to the PhilMaize, the mountainous areas of Sara in the past were a great contrast to nearby lowlands where there are 10,000 hectares (ha) of rice and 6,000 ha of sugarcane. Some of the people in the mountainous areas were growing corn but their yields were awfully low as hybrid corn seeds were not available.
Delson said in the past the people in the six barangays derived most of their household income by rendering seasonal farm labor in the rice and sugarcane fields from May to July and October to January. On the average, they earned P60-R100 a day, which was barely enough to buy food. August was their worst month. They hardly ate three square meals a day, and they had to contend themselves with their huts made of bamboo and cogon roofing.
He came to know the farmers in the six barangays soon after he established in 1989 the Model Agricultural Supply store, which is now a big distributor of agriculture inputs in Panay island. He only got to know their problems in 1997 when he rented 4 ha for corn production.
He used hybrid seeds and applied herbicides and fertilizers, as well as followed the recommended cultural practices for hybrid corn. He found out, however, that labor cost for manual weeding was the biggest production cost due to the abundance of grasses and, hence, only a few residents were engaged in corn farming. Likewise, the farmers were practicing full tillage and were experiencing substantial soil erosion in areas where the slope was 25 to 45 degrees.
ZERO AND MINIMUM TILLAGE
It was probably a stroke of fate for the farmers as the solution to their problem came soon after Delson started producing corn. In 1998 the multinational company Monsanto Philippines and Delson introduced zero and minimum tillage to the corn farmers primarily to solve soil erosion, which was a big problem because corn farming in Sara is in the highly elevated areas. Delson and the Monsanto people were sure that soil erosion could be minimized with zero and minimum tillage.
As a distributor of Monsanto herbicides and seeds, Delson collaborated with the multinational company in convincing and educating the farmers on the use of the glyphosate herbicides Roundup and Power as an alternative practice in land preparation.
“I remember that some farmers ridiculed us, saying we were still young in corn farming and the new practice was not acceptable to them as well as not compatible to their existing practices,” Delson said.
To encourage the farmers to use glyphosate herbicides, Delson had to sacrifice a good portion of his profit by giving a knapsack sprayer for every purchase of five cases of the herbicides. Because of the farmers’ resistance to the new technology, he had to introduce it initially among the 30 farmers who were getting production loans from him.
Although the adoption of the technology was slow, their sacrifices paid off as some of the farmers began to use the technology. They realized that the new technology reduces the cost of production as not much was spent for land preparation and manual weeding. Their yields and income eventually increased and, hence, other farmers had to adopt the technology.
In 2004, the technology was already being adopted in some 1,200 ha in Sara and San Dionisio where Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) corn was already being grown.
Although the farmers did not have much capital for corn farming, they obtained production loans from corn financiers in Sara. In many instances, they even obtained loans for their medical and other emergency needs. To uplift the socioeconomic condition of the farmers, the corn financiers organized on April 25, 2005 the Sara Corn Financiers Association, which was expanded into NICPAI several months later to include the corn producers in the neighboring towns of San Dionisio and Lemery.
Registered at the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 6, 2006, NICPAI aims to enhance the corn farmers’ knowledge on corn production, develop camaraderie among corn producers, as well as improve the local corn industry through the acquisition of postharvest facilities that would improve the quality of corn.
NICPAI members provide production loans to the farmers and facilitate the marketing of their products. They buy the grains at current market prices, and NICPAI sells these directly to feed millers, as well as hog and poultry raisers. In the process, the middlemen are eliminated to the advantage of the farmers., The province of Iloilo has eight big feedmills that sell their products to the islands of Negros, Cebu and Palawan.
The initial financing rate was 8 percent per month, but this was reduced to 4 percent as more affluent people also went into financing and the competition became stiffer.
The government has also provided sunport for the grass land conversion program by constructing access roads. In addition, Quedancor has offered to provide production loans at 1 percent interest a month.
COMES BIOTECH CORN
Delson said that more grass lands were converted into productive corn lands with the introduction of Monsanto’s glyphosate-tolerant corn in 2005, leading to the conversion of more and more grass lands into productive corn lands. That was after a series of dialogues and training as well as a lot persuasion were done to convince the farmers to use the new corn variety, which was developed through biotechnology.
In a span of three years, 9,300 ha of grass lands were already converted into corn lands following the zero and minimum tillage technology. However, 2,325 ha were still planted to traditional corn seeds. The farmers were even expanding to nearby mountainous barangays in Iloilo and Capiz. Even those without a carabao and farm implements were already able to cultivate their former grass lands.
Delson said that with the spur of economic activity in Northern Iloilo, the local government units improved existing roads and opened new ones that are passable by four-wheeled vehicles. Electricity is now provided to the farming communities.
“In the past, they were treated as second class citizens, but now they are the apple of the eyes of the business community as they wait for the corn harvest season because of their trade partnership,” Delson said.
Delson said the farmers now earn a net income of R40,000 per hectare annually as average yield has increased to 5 tons/ha. Additional work force is now needed during the harvest season due to increased yield. In effect, the number of beneficiaries of biotech corn increased.
Moreover, corn farmers now send their children to school. Many of them have either repaired their houses or constructed better dwellings. They can now afford to buy refrigerators, television sets, video players, karaoke, audio systems, and service vehicles like motorcycles. Others have invested in postharvest facilities like corn shellers and trucks.
Since plowing and weeding are no longer being done, the farmers have more time to engage in other means of livelihood.
Recently, before the foreign exchange rate dropped to its present level, this success story together with six other success stories around the world won the international Pledge Award. NICPAI got the Judges Choice Award with a US $20,000 cash prize. NICPAI, however, does not intend to rest on its laurels.
As Delson aptly said: “NICPAI plans to sustain the gains both for the [farming] communities and farm conservation. At present, we are developing the [farms in the] municipalities of Barotac Viejo, Ajuy, San Rafael, Concepcion, and the neighboring municipalities in Capiz. We will continue [to help] the corn farmers improve their quality of life as well as their families.”
He added that NICPAI intends to put up a facility that would dry corn in cobs to cater to the needs of farmers.
