Engr. Mina Gallego who works at the Provincial Engineering Office got sick when she was about 36 years old. Her doctor advised her to undergo medical procedure to remove her myoma which had grown fast. Hesitant, she went to other doctors for a second opinion and the same diagnosis was given. By the time she was forty, she was ashen faced and very sick. Yet she was afraid to go under the knife and so she sought alternative medical opinion. She met a Dr. Ramos who practiced natural medicine in the US and gladly accepted his recommendation for a detoxification process.
Engr. Mina went through the whole detox program of Dr. Ramos, which was the rigorous intake of his formula of fruit juices and a strict vegetable and fish diet regimen totally abstaining from meat. It took her more than a year to recover and by the time she ended her detoxification, she was totally healed. That experience taught her a valuable lesson that diet plays the most crucial role in one's life and that healthful food should be the person's primary concern.
That experience also drove her to test her skills as a farmer and she took over her father's 2.75 hectares farm in Brgy. Naga in Pototan in year 2007. Leaving the 2,500 sq. meters built up area, the net area for rice farming was about 2.5 hectares. At the start, she adopted the conventional farming system which is being practiced by all farmers in her community. For that 2.5 hectares, she used 12 sacks of rice seeds, 5 bags Urea and 14-14-14 and top dressed with 2 more bags Urea. She also applied 1 liter of foliar fertilizer.
Aside from these chemical inputs, she also applied 38 bags of vermi cast or the manure produced by earthworms. To control weeds, she applied 3 gallons of Microbase. Both the vermi castings and Microbase were supplied by a known organic inputs supplier in the area. Her inputs and efforts resulted to a good crop of 198 sacks of palay for the main crop and another 30 sacks from the ratoon crop 45 days later. She herself was surprised by the ratoon crop which was productive because all her neighbors did not practice ratooning. The stalks of their rice plants were not sturdy and healthy after the panicles where harvested.
Throwing all caution to the wind, she decided full conversion to organic farming by June 2008. This time she applied 25 bags vermi compost, 3 gallons of Microbase and 3 liters per week of the probiotics solution provided by the same organic inputs supplier. This time even without the chemical inputs, she harvested 96 bags of palay. She went another step further in November 2008 where she used only 3 bags rice seeds, 20 bags vermi cast, 3 gallons Microbase to control weeds and 2 containers (40 liters) per week of her own probiotics which is based on the fermentation of Tibicos, a type of probiotics said to have originated in Nepal or the Himalayas (http://healthmad.com/alternative/tibicos-mushroom-a-miracle-cure/).
Her non-conventional farming methods also gave problems for her. Her neighbors thought she was crazy and would just look at her weirdly. It also came to a point that the laborer which she paid P3,000 per month just to follow her orders must have been laughed at and left suddenly. The disruptions in the schedules of spraying and other timely farm activities resulted to a low harvest of 75 sacks of palay. She was further challenged when a neighbor approached her to propose that he will lease her farm since she was only experimenting and playing with it.
Another blow hit her next season when she acquired faulty seeds from a government agency. She only used 15 bags vermi cast and her farm hand lied to her about using Microbase as scheduled and weeds overran her rice crop. Despite the bad start, her rice seedlings showed promise and at 15 days old, they already started to tiller because the soil was already fertile. But she was dealt a double whammy when Tungro, a dreaded viral disease brought by the plant-hopper vector hit the whole farm. However she persisted and while her neighbors had total crop loss, she was still able to harvest 48 sacks. She attributed this recovery to her weekly spraying of 60 liters of tibicos solution.
At the start of the second crop in Novermber 2009, she planted Red-64, a local discovery which originated when a farmer planted a crop of IR-64 beside a traditional red rice strain and the IR-64 cross pollinated and resulted to a red strain which had excellent eating quality. Engr. Mina sourced her seed from another farmer-engineer, Ananias Lago. This time she applied 14 bags vermi cast and Microbase to control weeds. Again, she applied a weekly dose of Tibicos and other fermented juices which she made personally. This time, her harvest went up to 90 bags.
Buoyed by the increasing yields of her farm, she got bolder and by June 2010, she used 5 bags Red 64, 10 bags vermi compost and again the weekly spraying of Tibicos and other fermented juices. This time she went without Microbase. Even when El Nino hit the country, she was not bothered. While her neighbors' farms were dry and the soil cracked, hers was also affected but the cracks were very few and mud was still knee deep even in the midst of the driest periods. Her farm hand and her neighbors often went to inspect the crop and were surprised at the micro-ecosystem that had established. Spiders, dragonflies and other predators had re-colonized and despite the heavy presence of green and brown plant hoppers, her farm was not at all affected by the Tungro virus! This time she harvested 196 sacks of rice.
When asked by neighbors about the secret of her farm, her farm hand answered that she is using herbal medicines, aptly called in Ilonggo/Hiligaynon as “harampol” and “luy-a-luy-a”. This insinuates that she must have resorted to mumbo-jumbo often associated with witch doctors and herbalists. However, the use of fermented juices and vermi-casts are an established protocol in organic farming and had been carefully studied by advocates of natural farming and organic farmers.
Now fully confident, Engr. Mina has recently planted her farm with 1 sack black rice, 1 sack white, 1/3 sack glutinous or malagkit and 4 sacks of her old reliable Red 64. This time she said, she will stick to her established protocol that gave her the 196 sacks of rice despite the El Nino.
She had her low moments too, she said. Being called crazy is one thing that challenged her and she knew that she was in the right direction that is why she persevered and proved to everybody that she was right all along. Her initial low yields were brought by the poor soil conditions and the lack of a stable ecosystem in the farm. The rice plants were always attacked by pests and diseases as well as the drastic changes in weather conditions. Rice plants grown on basic nutrients supplied by chemicals are not sturdy since they grow fast and lack a balanced nutritional profile. Organically grown rice plants however are healthier and sturdier where insect pests find it hard to penetrate the hard outer stem.
Balanced nutrition provided by the organic fertilizers, the presence of good bacteria both in the plants and in the soil, and, the non-use of pesticides have also ushered the reestablishment of a balanced ecosystem where insect predators attack insect pests and thus keep their population low. So Engr. Mina haven't seen the need to use pesticide poisons for her farm.
Producing organic rice has rewards too. She sells her milled red rice at P45.00 per kilogram, to co-employees and others who have learned about it. This is about P12.00 per kilogram higher than the standard milled rice in the market. Asked about her income from farming, she says that she just earns a bit at the moment because of the experimentation she had gone through but she is optimistic that there is already a turn around and the future efforts will be much brighter. If her prices hold, she says that she will be earning almost twice any rice farmer having the same area that she has. She is very happy that since starting her farming efforts, her whole family had been behind her, supporting her activities and experiments.
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