Willingness to learn pays off handsomely for Bicol farmer
January 20, 2002 | 12:00am
LIGAO CITY – While the cool morning mist covers this barangay south of this city, Eugenio Murillo, 54, rises early and walks to his farm to remove weeds from his vegetable plot which is planted to ampayala, corn, stringbeans, ginger, squash and upo. He also tries talking them into growing faster and staying away from common pests.
Unlike most coconut farmers, Murillo doesn’t stay idle for 45 days waiting for the next coconut harvest.
He used to rely heavily on coconut, a habit that he found very difficult to break, until he could no longer sustain his growing family just from selling copra.
"I could hardly sleep at night worrying where to get the money to feed my small children," Murillo recalled. Back in the 80’s his income was a measly P3,000 a month, all from selling copra.
Today, with the help of his wife, Aida, who is into cutflower, he is one of the most successful coconut farmers in Barangay Tastas here.
For him the agrarian reform program and the comprehensive livelihood program of the government to improve the life of farmers was the blessing that sparked a turnaround in his farming career.
By applying what he learned in various trainings like multi-cropping, he was able to earn a total of P355,259 from 1999 to 2000, although his net income from copra was only 23.06 percent.
But he earned P222,075.86 from his vegetable crops and P24,049.14 from livestock production while his coconuts gave him an income of P500,099.00.
From his earnings in livestock production, he was able to buy a palay thresher, hand tractor and a passenger motorcycle, giving him an extra income of P144,840 in two years.
He was also able to improve their home and buy appliances like a refrigerator, a television set, sala dining sets.
"What is most important is that I was able to send all my five children to school," says Murillo. The eldest is Myrna, an education graduate, while Jesus is studying at a government-run agriculture school and two others are taking up agribusiness. The youngest is about to graduate from college.
Ligao City is one of the fastest developing towns of Albay and a major link to the different parts of the province, making it a key point in the development of the province. It is basically a coconut producing area. Out of 56 barangays, 46 are classified as coconut growing. One of these is barangay Tastas, the pioneer site of the Maunlad Na Niyugan Tugon sa Kahirapan program in Bicol
Part of the strategy is the distribution and application of fertilizers to improve coconut yield. There are 158 coconut farmers in the village who are tilling 172.36 hectares planted with 17,636 coconut trees.
The program has several components: a field school for coconut farmers, ginger and vegetable, macapuno, lacatan production, aquaculture and carabao dispersal.
Since the school was put up, 33 coconut farmers have taken part in trainings like improving farm productivity, integrated pest management, proper use of fertilizer, according to Virginia Llave, agriculturist II, based in Ligao City.
Located in the southern part of the city, Barangay Ranao-Ranao from the town proper, it is about 37 kilometers from Legazpi City.
Tastas has a land area of 306 hectares, of which a total of 298 hectares is planted to coconuts and other agricultural crops. The farmlands are flat to rolling with a small degree of elevation. The silty clay loam soil is moderately drained, with a soil depth of about 100 to more than a hundred meters. At most, the area has one-and-half-dry months and then rainfall throughout the year. The Kabilugan River is the source of water for irrigation.
Ninety percent of the households (257) depends on coconut farming for their livelihood./ But while coconut is their major source of income, most coconut farmers do not bother to fertilizer their coconut trees. And though inter-cropping under coconut trees is common knowledge, farmers have not been able to apply the technology due to financial constraint.
"It was actually a vicious cycle of not earning enough so there was no capital to use for other endeavors," Rillo said.
For instance, the cost of man-animal labor in the village at P250 per day was too much for a farmer who did not have working animals. The problem was compounded by the single person ownership of most of the coconut farms in the area.
The various training conducted by the different government agencies like the Department of Agrarian Reform, PCA, Department of Agriculture and other government and non-government organizations from 1995 to 2000 helped Murillo and other coconut farmers become a lot more productive.
Together with other farmers, Murillo attended seminars on corn production, carabao management, large cattle production, vegetable production, copra trading, post harvest facilities, fertilizer management and macapuno production.
Applying the knowledge he gained from these seminars, Murillo planted ginger, vegetables such as ampalaya, upo, stringbeans, and squash under the coconut trees. He used organic fertilizer derived from dried swine and chicken manure. On a hectare of land, he planted corn and converted the waste materials as feed for his carabaos, swine and native chicken. The carabao manure and chicken dung are used as organic fertilizer for his crops.
Murillo made his own feed for his swine by mixing yellow corn, rice bran D1 and D2, fishmeal, molasses and Vetracin.
He was a beneficiary of the green chicken dispersal project of the agriculture department and the city of Ligao, increasing the original number of green chickens to 10 which he distributed to other coconut farmers in the area.
Aside from the coconut, vegetable and livestock production, he is also engaged in low-land rice farming.
He saw the advantage of biological pest control measures and thus practiced it whenever applicable. He helps other farmers fight corn borers by disseminating the technology on corn detasseling. He uses natural insect repellants instead of chemical insecticides as well as natural insect attractants to cultivate the population of beneficiaries insect in his farm.
"We have to protect the environment where our crops grow," Murillo says on the importance of biological control measures.
Patience, willingness to learn pay off handsomely for Bicol farmer.
From his training in vegetable production conducted by the PCA, UPLB and IPB, he applied natural insect repellants using pepper mixed with detergent powder and water.
"What is remarkable about him is that he teaches other farmers on the technologies that he successfully applied to his crops," said Edmundo Bailon, PCA provincial manager for Albay during a field visit to his cocunut farm Wednesday.
In 1979, he recalled that his three-fourths hectares of Riceland was threatened by rodents. Instead of using convention methods like rodenticides in eradicating the pest, he cooked camote, and extracts from grated coconut milk and salted fish for the rodents.
"I asked them (the rats) to eat the food I cooked instead of the newly sprouting rice in the middle of the field," Murillo said. "I did not know what happened but the rodents were gone and I was able to harvest 15 sacks of palay.
Murillo has started to plant macapuno seedling he obtained from the PCA-ARC and intercropped it with cacao seedlings he bought. He also took part in the training on coco coir and by-product utilization at the Bicol University College of Arts and Agriculture (BUCAF) in Guinobatan town Albay.
Murillo was able to harvest a total of 69,626 nuts from the 406 coconut trees he tended inside his five-hectare farm from 1999 to 2000. At 12 harvest a year and each palm producing 14 units, he harvests average of 171 nuts annually per palm. The two-year production record shows an average yield of 8.5 tons of copra, based on a PCA report. For every four nuts he harvested, he was able to produce a kilo of copra.
Also, he planted a one-hectare portion of his land with rice (Ozyza sativa) twice a year. For 1999, the first season of IR-18 planted seeds yielded 120 cavans while the wet season planting of IR-52 produced only 95 cavans or a total of 9,510 kilos. The total production for year 2000 was 133 cavans or 5,810 kilos.
Despite the use of both organic and inorganic fertilizers in his Riceland, the harvest was severely affected by the eruption of Mayon Volcan last June 2000 as well as from March to July 2001.
From December 1998 to March 2000, he planted a one-hectare portion with corn (Zea mays) for three consecutive planting seasons yielding a total of 2,600 kilos (52 cavans), 3,100 kilos (62 cavans) and 1,525 kilos for the first, second and third croppings, respectively. It was also affected by the volcano’s successive eruption.
Knowing a 339 percent return on investment planting ampalaya (Momordia charantia), Murillo started to intercoip ampalaya from June 1999 to January 2000 in a 0.5 hectare plot inside his coconut farm in 1999, he harvested 4,181 kilos of ampalaya from the six chupas of seeds planted in June. The yield was smaller at 1,895 kilos due to ashfall damage.
For the last two years, he also planted the following: stringbeans, ginger, squash and upo.
From the two piglets grown a breeder sows, he was able to produce 31 piglets in 1999 alone. One male piglet from the first farrowing was grown for breeding and performed 21 services before it was culled and sold in late 1999. The 30 piglets were fattened and sold after 7 to 8 months when live weights reached 80 kilos.
He owns one female carabao that produced four offspring from 1991 to 1999. Two of its progenies were given to the care of two farmers. From the additional carabao he received from the PCA, he was blessed with two more offspring in 2000. One of the offsprings was returned for the ongoing dispersal program of the CA for interested coconut farmers.
From 1999 to 2000, Murillo had an annual on-farm income of P274,139 and P81,120 or a return on investment (RPI) of 130 percent and 150 percent, respectively.
Of the plants planted and maintained during that time, squash recorded the most excellent yield with a return on investment of approximately 343 percent, according to a PCA report.
The year 2000 coconut production, although higher than that of 1999 in terms of number of nuts/copra produced, resulted in an income of P83,814.00 or a return on investment of 130 percent, including income earned from the sale of coco shells and charcoal.
He also earned a total off-farm income of P81,120 and P63,720 for years 1999 and 2000, respectively with an average of 150 percent ROL.
Overall, the combined income of all projects undertaken for 1999 and 2000 are P355,259 or 140 percnet and P144,840 or 150 percent, respectively.
To keep track of his transactions, he employed a simple record keeping system. Initially, he jotted down notes on calendars but with his multi-cropping endeavors, he used one notebook per crop or project where he wrote down the expenses, yield and sales for each planting season.
All harvests from his farm are sold locally, either right in his farm or at the town markets. He uses his own motorcycle in transporting his produce.
He monitors the price of copra and if the price is low, he sells his nuts whole instead of converting them to copra. He uses a simple "tapahan" dryer in copra processing.
Being an active member of the Maunlad Coconut Model Farm, Murillo was elected president of the organization. He was the representative in the National Coconut Week Celebration wherein the Tastas Maunlad Farm won second during the Search for the Best Maunland Coconut Model Farm in the country last Aug. 30, 2000 at the PCA, Diliman, Quezon City. He hosted field and farm visits of other farmers groups in Bicol as cluster president. Aside from this, he is also a member of the board of directors of TARC Multi-Purpose Cooperative.
Any knowledge he gains on farming methods and products he shares with other coconut farmers. For his BioNature test, he was able to convince other farmers in Tastas of the benefits of using organic fertilizer. Combined with curiosity and practically, he utilizes agro-ecology friendly technologies.
"This farmer is not just practical adoptor but simple and kind," said PCA provincial manager Edmundo Bailon. His concern for his fellow coconut farmers is shown through his actions. Through this he offered free a partion of his lot for the coconut nursery where 5,000 seednuts were sown and were distributed t other coconut farmers in the barangay. A 1,000-square meter land was offered free of use for the Coconut Based Farmers Field School shed and demonstration farm. This is also the site for the IPM-Kasakalikasan and other farmer’s trainings.
"The coconut does not make the farmer lazy. What he needs is to learn the technologies and apply it to increase farm productivity," said Murillo said in the local dialect. The innovations he introduced years back had shown good economic results.
No wonder he was the Regional Gawad Saka Awardee as Outstanding Coconut Farmer for CY 2000-2001 by the Department of Agriculture in Bicol.
Unlike most coconut farmers, Murillo doesn’t stay idle for 45 days waiting for the next coconut harvest.
He used to rely heavily on coconut, a habit that he found very difficult to break, until he could no longer sustain his growing family just from selling copra.
"I could hardly sleep at night worrying where to get the money to feed my small children," Murillo recalled. Back in the 80’s his income was a measly P3,000 a month, all from selling copra.
Today, with the help of his wife, Aida, who is into cutflower, he is one of the most successful coconut farmers in Barangay Tastas here.
By applying what he learned in various trainings like multi-cropping, he was able to earn a total of P355,259 from 1999 to 2000, although his net income from copra was only 23.06 percent.
But he earned P222,075.86 from his vegetable crops and P24,049.14 from livestock production while his coconuts gave him an income of P500,099.00.
From his earnings in livestock production, he was able to buy a palay thresher, hand tractor and a passenger motorcycle, giving him an extra income of P144,840 in two years.
He was also able to improve their home and buy appliances like a refrigerator, a television set, sala dining sets.
"What is most important is that I was able to send all my five children to school," says Murillo. The eldest is Myrna, an education graduate, while Jesus is studying at a government-run agriculture school and two others are taking up agribusiness. The youngest is about to graduate from college.
Part of the strategy is the distribution and application of fertilizers to improve coconut yield. There are 158 coconut farmers in the village who are tilling 172.36 hectares planted with 17,636 coconut trees.
The program has several components: a field school for coconut farmers, ginger and vegetable, macapuno, lacatan production, aquaculture and carabao dispersal.
Since the school was put up, 33 coconut farmers have taken part in trainings like improving farm productivity, integrated pest management, proper use of fertilizer, according to Virginia Llave, agriculturist II, based in Ligao City.
Located in the southern part of the city, Barangay Ranao-Ranao from the town proper, it is about 37 kilometers from Legazpi City.
Tastas has a land area of 306 hectares, of which a total of 298 hectares is planted to coconuts and other agricultural crops. The farmlands are flat to rolling with a small degree of elevation. The silty clay loam soil is moderately drained, with a soil depth of about 100 to more than a hundred meters. At most, the area has one-and-half-dry months and then rainfall throughout the year. The Kabilugan River is the source of water for irrigation.
Ninety percent of the households (257) depends on coconut farming for their livelihood./ But while coconut is their major source of income, most coconut farmers do not bother to fertilizer their coconut trees. And though inter-cropping under coconut trees is common knowledge, farmers have not been able to apply the technology due to financial constraint.
"It was actually a vicious cycle of not earning enough so there was no capital to use for other endeavors," Rillo said.
For instance, the cost of man-animal labor in the village at P250 per day was too much for a farmer who did not have working animals. The problem was compounded by the single person ownership of most of the coconut farms in the area.
Together with other farmers, Murillo attended seminars on corn production, carabao management, large cattle production, vegetable production, copra trading, post harvest facilities, fertilizer management and macapuno production.
Applying the knowledge he gained from these seminars, Murillo planted ginger, vegetables such as ampalaya, upo, stringbeans, and squash under the coconut trees. He used organic fertilizer derived from dried swine and chicken manure. On a hectare of land, he planted corn and converted the waste materials as feed for his carabaos, swine and native chicken. The carabao manure and chicken dung are used as organic fertilizer for his crops.
Murillo made his own feed for his swine by mixing yellow corn, rice bran D1 and D2, fishmeal, molasses and Vetracin.
He was a beneficiary of the green chicken dispersal project of the agriculture department and the city of Ligao, increasing the original number of green chickens to 10 which he distributed to other coconut farmers in the area.
Aside from the coconut, vegetable and livestock production, he is also engaged in low-land rice farming.
He saw the advantage of biological pest control measures and thus practiced it whenever applicable. He helps other farmers fight corn borers by disseminating the technology on corn detasseling. He uses natural insect repellants instead of chemical insecticides as well as natural insect attractants to cultivate the population of beneficiaries insect in his farm.
"We have to protect the environment where our crops grow," Murillo says on the importance of biological control measures.
Patience, willingness to learn pay off handsomely for Bicol farmer.
"What is remarkable about him is that he teaches other farmers on the technologies that he successfully applied to his crops," said Edmundo Bailon, PCA provincial manager for Albay during a field visit to his cocunut farm Wednesday.
In 1979, he recalled that his three-fourths hectares of Riceland was threatened by rodents. Instead of using convention methods like rodenticides in eradicating the pest, he cooked camote, and extracts from grated coconut milk and salted fish for the rodents.
"I asked them (the rats) to eat the food I cooked instead of the newly sprouting rice in the middle of the field," Murillo said. "I did not know what happened but the rodents were gone and I was able to harvest 15 sacks of palay.
Murillo has started to plant macapuno seedling he obtained from the PCA-ARC and intercropped it with cacao seedlings he bought. He also took part in the training on coco coir and by-product utilization at the Bicol University College of Arts and Agriculture (BUCAF) in Guinobatan town Albay.
Also, he planted a one-hectare portion of his land with rice (Ozyza sativa) twice a year. For 1999, the first season of IR-18 planted seeds yielded 120 cavans while the wet season planting of IR-52 produced only 95 cavans or a total of 9,510 kilos. The total production for year 2000 was 133 cavans or 5,810 kilos.
Despite the use of both organic and inorganic fertilizers in his Riceland, the harvest was severely affected by the eruption of Mayon Volcan last June 2000 as well as from March to July 2001.
From December 1998 to March 2000, he planted a one-hectare portion with corn (Zea mays) for three consecutive planting seasons yielding a total of 2,600 kilos (52 cavans), 3,100 kilos (62 cavans) and 1,525 kilos for the first, second and third croppings, respectively. It was also affected by the volcano’s successive eruption.
Knowing a 339 percent return on investment planting ampalaya (Momordia charantia), Murillo started to intercoip ampalaya from June 1999 to January 2000 in a 0.5 hectare plot inside his coconut farm in 1999, he harvested 4,181 kilos of ampalaya from the six chupas of seeds planted in June. The yield was smaller at 1,895 kilos due to ashfall damage.
For the last two years, he also planted the following: stringbeans, ginger, squash and upo.
From the two piglets grown a breeder sows, he was able to produce 31 piglets in 1999 alone. One male piglet from the first farrowing was grown for breeding and performed 21 services before it was culled and sold in late 1999. The 30 piglets were fattened and sold after 7 to 8 months when live weights reached 80 kilos.
He owns one female carabao that produced four offspring from 1991 to 1999. Two of its progenies were given to the care of two farmers. From the additional carabao he received from the PCA, he was blessed with two more offspring in 2000. One of the offsprings was returned for the ongoing dispersal program of the CA for interested coconut farmers.
Of the plants planted and maintained during that time, squash recorded the most excellent yield with a return on investment of approximately 343 percent, according to a PCA report.
The year 2000 coconut production, although higher than that of 1999 in terms of number of nuts/copra produced, resulted in an income of P83,814.00 or a return on investment of 130 percent, including income earned from the sale of coco shells and charcoal.
He also earned a total off-farm income of P81,120 and P63,720 for years 1999 and 2000, respectively with an average of 150 percent ROL.
Overall, the combined income of all projects undertaken for 1999 and 2000 are P355,259 or 140 percnet and P144,840 or 150 percent, respectively.
To keep track of his transactions, he employed a simple record keeping system. Initially, he jotted down notes on calendars but with his multi-cropping endeavors, he used one notebook per crop or project where he wrote down the expenses, yield and sales for each planting season.
He monitors the price of copra and if the price is low, he sells his nuts whole instead of converting them to copra. He uses a simple "tapahan" dryer in copra processing.
"This farmer is not just practical adoptor but simple and kind," said PCA provincial manager Edmundo Bailon. His concern for his fellow coconut farmers is shown through his actions. Through this he offered free a partion of his lot for the coconut nursery where 5,000 seednuts were sown and were distributed t other coconut farmers in the barangay. A 1,000-square meter land was offered free of use for the Coconut Based Farmers Field School shed and demonstration farm. This is also the site for the IPM-Kasakalikasan and other farmer’s trainings.
"The coconut does not make the farmer lazy. What he needs is to learn the technologies and apply it to increase farm productivity," said Murillo said in the local dialect. The innovations he introduced years back had shown good economic results.
No wonder he was the Regional Gawad Saka Awardee as Outstanding Coconut Farmer for CY 2000-2001 by the Department of Agriculture in Bicol.
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