Permaculture: Restoring lost balance in farm ecosystems

The harvest may be plenty for a small patch, but when farmers who grow single crops pour in large amounts of resources: fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, to get that, would that be reasonable?

Thus runs the poser that Erastus Leopando, a retiree and a self-confessed permaculture farmer cast over at Piskay ni Bai, PIA Bohol’s talk show that tackles on topics that are important and engaging to Boholanos.

Where is the logic there when you produce a hundred bags, of which you would use 50 bags to buy fertilizers?

Leopando, who used to be a government employee before he migrated to the US with his family, is now back for good, to take on a love he turned his back on, when he was still much stronger to take on the laborious task of farming.

But for him, farming could be strenuous, if one goes against the natural ecosystems.

Adopting a farming system called permanent culture or permaculture, Leopando and his farm manager Engr. Pojas Dioscoro “Ite” Pojas, are managing the Leopando farm by looking back at the wisdom of old that worked and noting the natural and flourishing ecosystems.

When you plant something that does not go with the soil, you would need fertilizer to make it grow, but when you plant one that is already there or has grown there, you may not need that much fertilizer, because that plant has been proven to grow and flourish there, Leopando illustrated on the online talk show.

Aside from going with the organic nature of the farm, both highlighted the need for setting up of an environment that allows the plant to survive and harden its capacity to fight off natural elements that the imbalanced farm ecosystem keeps following years of farming abuse.

Permaculture adopts integrated diversified organic farming, and uses a happy mingling of vegetables, fruit trees, flower gardens, vermiculture and natural pollination

“Help the plant first by protecting them against natural predators like snails, or worms, because the conventional system of farming has poisoned the worms that kill the birds that eat it,” he explained.

Work with what is there: if your farm is near the sea, using drifted seaweeds is a great idea, and if your farm is far from the sea, rotting banana trunks are great places for earthworms, which are your soil softeners, Leopando illustrated.

Permaculture uses the naturally decayed farm refuse, animal manure, kitchen peel and parings as well as rotten fruits, dried leaves processed through vermiculture.

To regulate the insects in the farm, they use a natural concoction from plants that have been proven to deter insects, and because these are naturally sourced, they are harmless to birds.

In fact, to help in natural pollination, other than birds, butterflies and insects, the farm keeps colonies of stingless bees.

Pojas, who has worked with Gawad Kalinga and has done extensive stingless bee keeping training recalled that his father, who also kept stingless bees, would harvest honey and use it to ease out fever when he was young.

“I do not know what was in it, but now, I also use that when my kids would have fever,” Pojas said.

Stingless bees, owing to their size, can access pollens that other pollinators can not go, so they facilitate a much better farm pollination that any other pollinators, Pojas explained.

Besides, stingless bees rarely go beyond 500 meters from their colony, and would rather stay in the farm than venture out where there are predators and chemical spray in conventional farms that can kill them.

Permaculture is taking care to regain the balance in the entire farm ecosystem: from water management by using drip irrigation, coco peat to facilitate water retention, natural fertilizer, natural spray fertilizers, natural pest management, pollination, to propagation and reproduction, so that everything becomes self- sustaining and farming now becomes a breeze. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)