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Charm Offensive
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Sagada, Philippines
Domingo Kelly, 63 years old and a lifelong farmer in this world-renowned and scenic part of the Cordilleras, has endured many hardships and some-how managed to get his seven children through high school. “I plant rice, then cabbage and carrots alternately throughout the year,” he says. Yet the income this third-generation farmer from Ilocos Sur earns from the fields is not enough to feed his family—to make ends meet he has to seek additional work.
Upland farmers face colder weather, less water, lower yields, higher costs, rugged topography, and greater distances from farm to market than their lowland counterparts. Rice yields are 50% less than in the lowlands, which yield about 3.5 tons per hectare.
Under the Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resource Management (CHARM) Project, however, upland farmers are now doubling and sometimes tripling their earnings—thanks to irrigation schemes, new infrastructure such as bridges and farm-to-market roads, and training in new farming methods.
CHARM is a 7-year project that aims to reduce poverty in the Cordillera region by increasing incomes of smallholder farm families through a boost in agricultural productivity and development of sustainable systems of resource management. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) financed almost half of the total project cost, initially estimated at $41.4 million when the project was approved in 1996.
So far, about 50,000 poor households in 82 villages in Abra, Mountain Province, and Benguet have benefited from the project. Other nearby villages are indirectly reaping benefits from the project as well.
The communities under CHARM, home to mainly indigenous people, were consulted and mobilized throughout the project on issues such as managing natural resources. The idea is to involve them as stakeholders, committed to the project’s implementation from the planning stage, on through maintenance and upkeep, and even after completion.
With the project now in its final stages, it is being maintained by beneficiaries themselves. Roads will have to be maintained by local governments, irrigation systems by farmer groups, and reforestation projects by the community.
“I would want to believe that doing it in a participatory manner the way we did will really be the way to do projects rather than the blueprint type,” says Cameron Odsey, Project Director of CHARM. “We really have to involve the primary beneficiaries of the project, who are the farmers.”
The project has completed rehabilita-ting 151.35 kilometers (km) of farm-to-market roads, 644.5 meters (m) of spill- ways, 95.4 m of bridges, 358.5 m of foot bridges, 30 water supply schemes, and 52 community irrigation systems/projects.
Development also costs more in the uplands: a farm-to-market road in the lowlands would cost less than P1 million/km, compared with P1.5 million–P2 million in the uplands.
New and rehabilitated irrigation systems have enabled farmers to harvest two to three times a year, instead of just once a year. In terms of reforestation, it has established a total of 6,560 hectares (ha) of plantations (reforestation, agroforestry, and enrichment planting) while maintaining 6,150 ha for forestry and 410 ha for agroforestry.
For some members of local communities, the project marked the first time they had benefited from a national government project of this scale.
Catherine Kibatay, who owns a small store overlooking an irrigated farm in Aguid, Sagada, Mountain Province, notes the improvement in her community. “Abandoned fields are planted with rice again as irrigation water is made avail-able and distributed evenly,” she says. “We thank the CHARM Project for rehabilitating the irrigation system. It’s helpful to the farmers.”
The idea is to involve [the people] as stakeholders, committed to the project’s implementation from the planning stage, on through maintenance and upkeep, and even after completion.
It is with CHARM’s assistance that the first ancestral domain title in the country was issued by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples. To date, it has supported the issuance of certificates of ancestral domain titles of almost 140,000 ha and the preparation of ancestral domain sustainable development and protection plans in six municipalities, thus improving land tenure in project areas.
For the agricultural support services, farmers underwent a 4-month integrated pest management course on ways to properly use fertilizer and to avoid the use of pesticides. They were taught about the effects of pesticides on human health, the environment, and on insects—both friend-ly and harmful. By showing farmers the proper use of pesticides and their harmful effects, and alternative ways to control pests, they were able to reduce chemical pesticide use by 70%.
“The war with pests goes on. There are emerging pests that evolve,” acknowledges Mr. Odsey. “What is critical is for farmers to be able to understand these things and not rely on pesticides in managing and controlling farm pests and diseases. In the past, farmers immediately sprayed pesticides without knowing whether an insect is indeed friendly or a pest.”
For some members of local communities, the project marked the first time they had benefited from a national government project of this scale.
Training was also conducted on how to grow vegetables and what crops to plant. Research on high-yielding rice varieties for the uplands was undertaken to determine their potential to replace traditional varieties. While results were positive, these did not match farmers’ expectations of taste, postharvest characteristics, and usefulness as food and in cultural traditions.
A major problem vegetable growers now face is the entry into the local market of cheaper imports. Locally grown vegetables are also uneven in size, while the market wants uniform size.
In addition, as farmers’ children are educated, their new skills lead them to activities other than those needed on the farms.
“We are encouraging our compatriots to buy our own products,” says Mary Buanzi, Senior Agriculturist of Mountain province. “At least we are sure of our products, unlike the imports. We do not know their production process; they might contain too much pesticide. At least if we buy our own, we know the processes involved in their production.”
Upland farmers toil on despite the challenges. But improvements to their way of life brought about by projects such as CHARM will help ensure continuity of centuries-old traditions for generations to come.
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