Balik Saka

Super Typhoon Yolanda  snuffed out the lives of thousands of women, men and children in Leyte in 2013. The catastrophic effect was devastating. Most everything was in ruins.

Farmers lost everything they had: houses and crops, coconut trees, all that made them earn their keep. They were in a daze, having lost loved ones, not knowing where to go, how they would survive after the relief goods handed  them were gone.

Still they said they wanted to go back to their farms.

That was where Balik Saka (Back to Farm) came in.  The goal was to rehabilitate and improve the productivity of farm communities in areas in Leyte affected by Yolanda.

A team chose initial communities in Leyte to enroll in the Balik Saka program sponsored by Universal Harvester Inc. and local government agencies. They were chosen based on certain criteria like their being poor, were agriculture communities unreached by aid from donor agencies, and willing to adopt other communities after they became sustainable. The initial communities chosen were Villa Corazon of Burauen, and Villa Conzoilo of Jaro.

The team consisted of Leyte Gov. Dominic “Mic” Petilla, provincial agriculturist Roger Portula and staff Chelo Maderazo and Melba Bardillon;   Dr. Mila How, executive vice president of Universal Harvester Inc., and her   project director Rommel Cunanan, and staff Johnmar Cortez and Ruby Pascual.

Farmers undertook a 16-week training program on the farms. With new agriculture knowledge they acquired, they grew vegetables in their plots. For upland areas, they were given seeds for the typical chopsuey ingredients of Baguio beans, cabbage, carrots, pepper and other vegetables like lettuce, petchay and others. For the lowland farms, introduced were the typical Pinakbet ingredients like kalabasa, okra, talong, tomatoes, ampalaya and others like melon, papaya and other familiar fruits in Leyte.

For this first stage of the project (including land assessment and other factors), around P3.5 million worth of seeds, fertilizers and other farm inputs was spent. No cash was given the beneficiaries. At the second stage, introduced were swine-raising, fish ponds and horticulture programs of the Leyte provincial government.

Three months after the planting season a harvest festival was held. The beneficiaries were thrilled at their being able to raise crops the scientific way.  Vegetables and other crops used to be imported from Cebu, Davao, and even as far as Benguet, consumers said. The first phase farming graduates express satisfaction about earning money from the Balik Saka project.

Rommel Cunanan says Balik Saka farmers have distinctly improved their income and lifestyles. Statistics show that 60 to 90 percent of the beneficiaries have improved living conditions due to their expansions in agri-business improved homes and bank deposits. The project has aided beneficiary communities (which count 53,000 individual members as of 2014) in attaining additional income through intercropping of vegetables or high value crops (cash crops) with rice and coconut, which before were their only source of income. Furthermore, the quality and consistency of the farmers’ products have attracted major restaurant chains in the province to buy their vegetables on a regular basis.

Balik Saka is one of corporate social responsibility projects of Universal Harvester Inc., a leading manufacturer, distributor, and exporter of organic and inorganic fertilizer in the country. The company is also into the shipping, food, and travel industries.

It had long been a dream of UHI Vice President Mila How to improve the lives of 5.4 million Filipino farmers.  In 2003, she and her husband, William How Sr., set up UHI as a Philippine Export Zone Authority-registered export producer to supply agricultural companies and plantations with SOP and develop other fertilizer lines.

In the 1980s, the charismatic businesswoman had discovered the difficult plight of farmers. They were victims of middlemen who charged exorbitant prices for fertilizers they bought from UHI and other fertilizer manufacturers.  They had to take loans to buy fertilizers at very high interest rates. Worse, for not knowing better, they used fertilizers not suited for their crops or the soil.

Dr. How decided to sell fertilizers directly to farmers’ cooperatives. This resulted in the price gap between her price and the normal selling price going down, she said. She underwent ISO certification to further guarantee farmers that UHI fertilizers comply with or exceed recommended specifications.

UHI’s involvement in the Balik Saka program consists of over-all project management, providing of free farm inputs, technical assistance on marketing and promotion of the farmers’ produce.

It’s noteworthy that Balik Saka communities have formed cooperatives. There are now 302 communities that have formed cooperatives and federations of cooperatives in Leyte, some parts in Eastern Visayas, Zamboanga del sur and Laguna.

Another noteworthy feature is the return-to-farm policy of “paying back by paying it forward.”  No loans are made. Inputs are given, to be paid in the form of giving the amount received by a community to the community it adopts.  This means that each community beneficiary sets aside some of its income to generate funds so they can adopt another community.  This looks like a domino theory at work.

UHI’s commitment to help in the country’s achieving sustainable development is shown in its being the chief benefactor in a partnership with the Junior Chamber International Philippines in the TOFARM (The Outstanding Farmers of the Philippines) award. The award was initiated by the Philippine Jaycees in the 70s “in recognition of the resiliency, ingenuity, and the strength of our hard working Filipino farmers.”

Dr. How says TOFARM “honors the people whose hands and hard work produce the food that Filipino families partake at their tables. It honors the farmers for what they symbolize in this country and in our life . . . for inspiring us and for showing us what is good and admirable in the character of the Filipino.”

TOFARM has given awards to families, local government units, multi-purpose cooperatives, fisherfolk, women farmers, urban and youth farmers.

Two of the Balik Saka beneficiaries have received TOFARM awards. They are Eleuterio Indec, recipient of the special citation under the farmer category in 2013, and Alex Aborita, outstanding young farmer for 2014.

Other UHI “interventions’’ are a photo/video contest and a festival of films featuring farmers’ lives, intensification of cassava, cacao, rice mill, and dairy projects.

UHI, with the active involvement of Mila How, is business with a heart for farmers.

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On another front, Dreams Yarnshoppe is celebrating its 25th year with an exhibit titled “Silver Milestones” of its student’s exquisite needle works hardly seen these days, up to Sunday, Sept. 25, at the store at Glorietta 4, Left Wing, and Makati.  Lilli de Leon, owner/teacher of Dreams Yarnshoppe, feels proud “to show to today’s young generation the beauty of the almost forgotten and heirloom inspired needlecrafts.”

The works of Pacita Javelosa Ancheta will be on exhibit. Pacita is a long-time Dreams Yarnshoppe customer and student. A retired accountant, she is now a housewife living in Butuan City.

Lessons taught in the shop are in knitting, crochet, hardanger embroidery, tatting and specialty stitches.

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