When I was an undergraduate student of UPCA (now UPLB) many years ago, I learned that traditional farming had to go and modern farming practices should be in. Us agriculture students in those days took that teaching hook, line, and sinker. Why not? We were taught by the best agricultural scientists in Southeast Asia and we were studying in the premier agricultural college in the region. Still, today, I believe we still have much to learn from the traditional farming practices in Itbayat, Batanes, the last Philippine town to the north, invariably referred to by Philippine media as the edge of the world. Itbayat agriculture, I believe, is probably more sustainable than what is commonly taught today in most agricultural schools in the country. After all, it has survived hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years.
In the past, kaingin used to be practiced in Itbayat, but apparently farmers there have stopped or at least minimized this practice now. Learned agriculturists would find the traditional farming practices on the island strange, if not out of this world. But it’s probably more scientific than most agriculture graduates know. Well, somebody from the UPLB-CA has to test that hypothesis.
In Itbayat, the farming cycle follows this crop rotation schedule: rice-corn-yam-kamote-fallow for at least three years, then back to rice, etc.
Let me explain in detail the entire farming process on the island. In the olden days, when kaingin was still practiced, farmers would clear a specific patch of land, usually 50m x 50m, on the average. Bushes and shrubs would be cut and cleared, and trees decrowned or cut down. When the leaves dry, they’re burned, so the area is devoid of weeds and ready for planting.
Usually, the first crop is upland rice. There’s not much land preparation because plowing isn’t practiced. Farmers, using the simple hoe, cut a canal-like “farrow” on the land at right angle with the slope of the land so that when it rains soil will not erode. Rice seeds are sown in these “canals” and covered with soil using one’s feet so that rice birds will not eat them.
About a week before the rice is ready for harvest, corn is planted. Rice straws are usually left standing until farmers uproot them during weeding time and are left lying on the ground to serve as mulch. Farmers, of course, didn’t know this was mulching. All they knew was that the rice straws would prevent weeds from growing too fast as well as prevent the soil from drying up too quickly. When the corn is ready for harvesting as green corn, yam or ubi, tugi, and gabi are planted. When the corn is harvested, farmers would simply bend the corn stalk to serve as trellis for the growing yam vines. There are a couple of reasons for this practice: one, the yam vines will not touch the soil, which is very hot, to avoid plant wilting; and, second, these trellises together with the yam vines protect the soil from the elements. The basic principle is, don’t expose the soil to the elements so that it will not be damaged by erosion or cracking, and keep its fertility as well.
When yam is ready for harvest, kamote would be planted. Of course, the kamote vines would crawl on the ground and its healthy leaves would cover the soil completely. As the kamote plants grow, farmers normally plant pineapples and even bananas, as well. Farmers harvest kamote on staggered basis – that is, they get only the tubers they need for food -- over a period of at most one year. During this time, seedlings of small trees, locally called “anariong” and “vinwa,” would be left to grow bigger (both species, by the way, have soil fertilization properties). The kamote plants are not uprooted but simply left for as long as they survive the growing other plants and trees. As this process proceeds, however, farmers continue to harvest kamote tubers for as long as there are tubers to harvest.
Normally, the farm land is left to fallow for about three to five years. It's during this period that the farm patch becomes usually brushland or even grassland but would still be cleared for farming three to five years down the road. Meantime, other patches of farms which have been left to fallow in the last three to five years would be cleared for another farming cycle, starting with clearing and planting of rice, corn, yam, and kamote. Clearing the land during succeeding farming periods requires the use of the hoe to scrape grass from the soil. Like I said, plowing isn't practiced in Itbayat.
This particular farming tradition is practiced only in Itbayat. On Batan and Sabtang islands, farming practices there are different because farmers plow the land and uproot trees after a period of fallow.
In the 1950s, someone, actually a second-degree uncle of ours, who has just came out of the Seminary and refused to be ordained as priest, came home to Itbayat and introduced garlic as cash crop. (I don't know if in the Seminary they learned agriculture in those days.) As a result, the traditional pattern of farming in Itbayat changed accordingly so that the first crop to be planted was garlic, then rice, then corn, etc. Garlic did not have to be grown in kaingin land. In fact, the grassland was good enough. In any case, grassland in Itbayat is fertile, too. Hence, people began cultivating graze lands for garlic production. Since garlic needed more fertile soil to grow bigger, some farmers couldn’t resist kaingin farming, but this soon became less practiced as they were also running out of virgin forests to cultivate. Besides, graze land soil in Itbayat is fertile as well.
Itbayat farmers do not use chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The soil remains fertile as a result of the farming cycle, and insect control is through natural bio-control as both friendly insects and pests are naturally present on the farm. In other words, "friendly insects" were not introduced by the farmers. These insects were natural inhabitants that have been there even before the farmers became farmers. The only “pests” that could not be easily controlled are the rice birds, locally called "tiyak" (maya in Tagalog) that would picnic on mature rice grains awaiting harvesting. The farmers of Itbayat, though, have a way of controlling these birds ... well, only partially successful, I might say. But that's another story all together.
Anyway, agriculture in Itbayat is absolutely sustainable. All families in Itbayat have farms of their own and they produce all they need. So commercial agriculture doesn't exist on the island. since people don't buy food (they produce their own food consumption). In the case of garlic, however, one or two farmers who have some funds would usually buy the garlic production of other farmers and transport such produce in bulk to Manila where it is marketed either on wholesale or retail basis. Garlic bulbs produced in Itbayat (and the whole of Batanes) are large, almost like those we import from Taiwan, but have stronger garlic taste.
Come to think of it. Agritorusim could flourish in Itbayat, Batanes. Just a thought.
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