Masanobu Fukuoka was a Japanese farmer and philosopher celebrated for his natural farming and revegetation of desertified lands. He came to the Philippines in 1988 to receive the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service.
At one time, Fukuoka was quoted as saying, “The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”
The statement seems to describe the life of Wilbert C. Galo, a farmer from Santo Tomas, Davao del Norte, who’s now in his late 40s.
Galo became interested in farming when he was still a kid. “Actually, I grew up on a farm since my parents were rice farmers. They also planted some vegetables like string beans and eggplant. In fact, my father was named as an outstanding farmer in 1986 by the municipal office of the Department of Agriculture.”
He was one of the beneficiaries of the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). His little farm was actually part of a banana plantation before. When he acquired the land, it was an abandoned area.
In 2021, he started developing the farm. He hired some people, mostly from his family and some friends, to smoothen the area. Canals were covered. Mounds were levelled. Since it was expensive to hire a tractor, he and his helpers used only spades and forks to transform the land into a farm.
“It wasn’t until I worked in a farm in Malaybalay, Bukidnon that I started to love farming. I brought with me the farming techniques I learned when I returned to my hometown,” he said, adding that it was his former boss – a farmer who is now a millionaire because of farming – who inspired him to become a farmer.
Aside from the knowledge he got from his previous employer; he also learned some techniques from other vegetable farms in the area. He also takes down notes of whatever errors he committed so he won’t make the same mistake. He credited the training and seminars conducted by Jollibee Group Foundation for enhancing his farming skills.
He started with only 600 square meters. Now, the lot has expanded to 3,000 square meters and the good thing about it is that he already owns the land. It is located in barangay Kinamayan.
Galo mostly grows vegetable crops like pechay, alugbati, and cucumber. He also plants calamansi as his permanent crop. “I plant alugbati and cucumber because both cost less and the return on investment is faster. I use the money I earned in financing my pechay, as this entails more money in growing,” he explains.
He plants calamansi because he wants to supply the calamansi needs of Chowking. “I may add radish later on since it is also a fast crop. It will help sustain my daily needs,” he says.
He recently added grapes and mulberry as these crops attract tourists. “I want my farm to become a tourist destination in our area,” he says.
He starts harvesting alugbati a month after he plants the crop. He is using commercial seeds of alugbati because he believes the quality is much better. As for cucumbers, he starts harvesting the fruits 35 days after planting.
He buys certified seeds from East-West Seeds and Kaneko from the town proper. “There is no question about the quality of their seeds as both are well-known,” he says.
According to him, he plants the cucumber seeds in a seedling tray first. Three days after the seedlings germinate, he transfers them to the nursery. It takes another seven days before he transplants them into the farm plots.
The same procedure is done for alugbati. He plants them in a seedling tray and one week after the seedlings germinate, he transfers them to the nursery and then 15 days thereafter to the farm plots.
He waters his crops when there’s no rain. If there’s rain, he observes the plots if the surface has dried. Once he sees the surface is already dry, he immediately waters the crops, especially cucumber which is easily dehydrated. The stalks of alugbati, when deprived of water, won’t grow long.
Since both crops need water, he practices the catch basin type of preparing the plots. “I dug the surface deeper so the water could penetrate through and stay longer,” he says.
He also provides his vegetable crops with the necessary fertilizer they need. “It’s 50/50; 50% organic and 50% synthetic,” he says. “Before planting, I apply compost like rice stock humus and carbonized rice hull.”
One week after planting, he applies 5 grams of urea per hill. “Every week, I increase the application by 5 grams until it goes up to 25 grams. After that, I stop fertilization because the crop starts to produce less,” he says.
On why he concentrates more on pechay, he says, “It is my moneymaker.” Economically, planting pechay improves food supply, makes people healthy, and helps people earn some money.
Like alugbati and cucumber, Galo also considers pechay as a “fast crop” as it can be harvested any time from 25 days and onward.
In order for him to have harvests throughout the year, he tries to divide the farm plots into three parts: one part is newly planted, the other part is ready for harvesting, and the remaining one part is where harvesting is being done.
Galo harvests pechay every Wednesday and Saturday. The Sundays and holidays are reserved for fertilization, growing seedlings and planting.
Galo doesn’t have any problem in marketing his vegetables. He already has regular buyers in the public market. The price is dependent upon the farmgate price.
The price of cucumber fluctuates, he says. But not pechay. He sells them at P50 to P60 per kilo. “The price is high because my buyers know the quality of my pechay. In addition, they stay fresh longer,” he says.
When asked about the problems he encountered in farming, he replies, “Mostly about the weather condition,” adding that it may be due to climate change. He also has a problem with diamondback moths which attack his primary crop during the months of December up to February when there is too much rain. Thus, he sprays the crop with yellow label chemicals 15 days before harvesting.
Although his farm is small, he still manages to make it profitable. “My farm is small, but the income is big,” he said. “This is because everything is being programmed – from bed setting to planting, from watering to harvesting. I use farming tools which I personally make.”
The success of his farm went unnoticed. So much so a lot of people – students, farmers, and even businessmen – visit the place. “There is no entrance fee since I still have a small facility. Besides, I want to share with other people who really want to know about farming,” he says.
In the future, he is looking forward to having his own greenhouse. He also dreams of making the farm an agri-tourism destination “so I can help more people who want to go into farming.”
He observes that today’s generation are no longer interested in farming. “Time will come our food production will be jeopardized because no one is farming anymore. We have to encourage more young people to go into farming.”
The Agricultural Training Institute of the Department of Agriculture reported that the average age of farmers in the country is already 57. Most of these aging farmers have been toiling on the lands since the 1970s and 1980s.
What the country needs now, to sustain food production in the coming years, is a new batch of farmers.
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