New method of conserving degraded lands developed

There is a new technology on how to effectively conserve and protect uplands from soil erosion and degradation.

It is called conservation farming village (CFV), which evolved out of an R&D project titled "Management of Sloping Lands for Sustainable Agriculture in the Philippines."

Coordinated by the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), the project was part of a bigger program funded by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), and later CARE Philippines, Inc.

Actually, PCARRD explained, a CFV is a model village where farmers practice and promote conservation farming technologies, among them hedgerow farming, contour farming, alley cropping, bench terracing, minimum tillage, natural vegetative strips and sloping agricultural land technology (SALT).

It adopts a community-based participatory approach to technology development, promotion and utilization wherein researchers, extension workers and farmers work and learn together.

Training, cross-farm visits and field days are held to allow farmers to observe, learn and experience conservation practices, said Dr. Digna O. Manzanilla, director of PCARRD’s Agriculture Resources Management Research Division (ARMRD), at a recent press forum.

An important component of CFV is the active leadership and participation of local governments, municipal and barangay officials, nongovernment and community-based organizations in instituting conservation farming policies and in mobilizing the community to positively respond to such policies.

Piloted in Maria Paz, Tanuan City, Batangas, the CFV technology has since then radiated to other sites such as Mabini (Batangas), Los Baños (Laguna), Tanay (Rizal), 10 barangays in four Camarines Sur towns (Goa, Tigaon, Ocampo and Tinambac) and Naga City.

CFV has been found effective and sustainable in enhancing adoption of sloping land management (SLM) technologies, as found in a PCARRD study.

UP Los Baños, one of PCARRD’s partner agencies in the R&D project, also noted that with the technology, soil erosion is reduced to a tolerable rate of less than 10 tons per hectare a year.

Moreover, the soil has become more fertile and yields are higher from the crops grown and the fruit-bearing plants (banana) planted in the hedgerows. – Rudy A. Fernandez