Agriculture Business Week

Every year, the government allocates a big part of the national budget for education to sustain the schooling of millions of Filipinos. But there’s another form of schooling that the government should sustain and strengthen to help farmers increase their income, reduce production cost, and safeguard health and environment: the Integrated Pest Management-Farmers’ Field School (IPM-FFS).

Modeled after the Indonesian Integrated Pest Management, the IPM-FFS is an extension approach developed by the Highland Agricultural Development Project (HADP) of the Department of Agriculture (DA) to train farmers on the judicious use of chemical farm inputs, and enhance- their management skills and knowledge in farming.

It was first launched in Atok, Benguet in 1992 in response to the cyanide scare or “green tide.” That time, farmers were “cocktailing” insecticides and were using cyanide-based compounds to control the severe infestation of diamond back moth (DBM), the worst insect pest infesting cabbage and other cruciferous vegetables. Dr. Cameron P. Odsey, project director of DA’s Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resources Management (CHARM) Project, said that the IPM-FFS is largely credited for the mobilization of key stakeholders of the vegetable industry for the control of DBM infestation on cabbage crops in the Cordillera.

Due to its success, DA included it as a major component in the national IPM program also known as Kasaganahan ng Sakahan at Kalikasan (KASAKALIKASAN), and included the production of rice, corn and other crops in its scope.

When the HADP was terminated in 1993, the CHARM Project expanded the implementation of the IPM-FFS in its coverage areas and developed and implemented the IPM-FFS curriculum on banana, swine, range chicken, nutrition, and agro-forestry.

The IPM-FFS did not only provide practical and technical solutions on pests and improved crop production management, it also served as a regular venue for monitoring farming problems, studying emerging problems, formulating solutions, and discussion of community problems.

This was affirmed by a study conducted by Tim Stock for the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and International Institute of Biological Control (IIBC) in 1994 among cabbage farmers who attended the IPM-FFS. According to the study, the IPM-FFS did not only train farmers on safe production methods, it also educated them on the consequences of overusing chemical farm inputs. Thus, they were convinced to adopt alternative crop production methods to reduce use of inorganic fertilizers and production cost, and ensure the viability of their harvest and safety of the consumers.

The follow-up study conducted by Dr. Walfredo Rola of the ADB, IIBC and DA in 1996 showed that the reduction on the use of inorganic fertilizers amounted to P2,373 per hectare and this contributed to the increase of net income of farmers.

Moreover, the recent evaluation study on the implementation of IPM-FFS on corn production in Alfonso Lista and Aguinaldo, Ifugao under the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani-Corn program also showed that the implementation of the IPM-FFS has been effective in reducing production cost, increasing the income of corn farmers in the Cordillera, and safeguarding the environment.

According to this study conducted by Aida Y. Pagtan of DA’s Cordillera Integrated Agricultural Research Center from March to June 2007, the net income of respondents increased from P17,018 to P26,513 or 56 percent and they attributed this to the crop production management techniques they learned from the IPMFFS.

Included in the curriculum of the IPM-FFS are integrated nutrient management and soil analysis, BIO-N application, planting distance, seeding rate, sidedressing, weed management, crop protection, agro-ecosystem analysis and use of botanical pesticides, detasseling, hybridization, and cost and return recording.

The corn farmers learned that they should detassel or remove the tassel of the corn, or the male flower, on the first or second day it comes out which usually happens at 45-50 days after planting. Detasseling is important for it prevents the corn borer from penetrating the plant through its flower, and allows the plant to direct and concentrate the nutrients on the growing ear and thus, the kernels would be bigger, better and uniform. This practice increased their yield by 17 percent and their gross return from P44,096 to P49,385.

The corn farmers also learned that the planting distance should be 70 x 20 centimeters and that the seeding rate should be one seed per hill to reduce the seed cost by 10 kilos per hectare or P1,500. They learned, too, that by utilizing hybrid corn, they can reduce the cost by as much as one bag of seeds per hectare or P3,000.

There were respondents who applied BIO-N, a powdered microbial-based fertilizer. It has microorganisms which convert the nitrogen from air into ammonia and it is also capable of replacing 75 percent of the total amount of nitrogen that rice and corn plants need. And because of BIO-N, they saved as much as P2,840 on the cost of basal fertilizer per hectare, whereas before, they were spending P3,200 or four bags of basal fertilizer per hectare.

Despite the success of the IPM-FFS, there is still much to be done. In Benguet alone, only 5,000 vegetable farmers out of 25,000 were trained and there are still many farmers who are producing other crops that should be educated on safe crop production methods. Due to this, when a delegation of farmers headed by Samuel Felix, chairman of the Municipal Agriculture and Fishery Council of Atok, have had a meeting with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, they asked for a stronger government support in implementing the IPMFFS.

Aside from strengthening its implementation, the local market should put a premium on organic vegetables. First of all, these are healthier, second, the farmers went through a more rigorous farming to produce organic vegetables, and third, putting premium on these would encourage farmers to practice organic farming.

If this concern wouldn’t be addressed, chances are, farmers might again practice traditional farming. Why would they bother going through a more rigorous farming if the market does not put a premium on their produce?

The local government of La Trinidad is trying to address this concern. Aside from supporting the IPM-FFS and other organic farming ventures, the local government is pursuing a joint project with the DA and the Japanese government to initially train 30 farmers not only on organic vegetable production, but as well as on marketing. In this way, the farmers would be able to identify and develop markets for their organic vegetables.