Thirty farmers finish climate resilient field school in Estancia, Iloilo

As we confront the challenges on environmental and climate issues on rice farming, thirty farmer-beneficiaries of Adaption and Mitigation Initiative on Agriculture (AMIA) brave to finish the sixteen-weeks Climate Resilient Farmers Field School in barangay Lonoy, Estancia, Iloilo.

The field school focused its discussion on system rice intensification (SRI) wherein it uses a methodology that increases rice yields while using fewer resources. It promotes optimal management of plants, soil, water, and nutrients. Consequently, SRI encourages farmers to increase spacing between hills and rows, adopt intermittent watering, and prioritize organic fertilizers over synthetic ones.

Farmer Rene D. Paciente one of AMIA Village Farmer shared that he had been practicing SRI technology for the past four years and grateful that he does not only reduce his production inputs but also sold his black rice produce at optimum price of P4,000/sack.

As the farmers went through SRI field techno-demo, many observations were recorded among which are the influx of pest “tiangaw” during the ripening stage because they lag behind the surrounding fields. This could be corrected if they were able to plant synchronously with the fellow farmers in the area.

New AMIA Farmer Rolando Malones was grateful that he was able to attend such intensive training saying that applying SRI technology he was able to reduce his seeds requirement from 4 sacks in one hectare to only ten kilos.

Estancia municipal agriculturist Engr. Edmundo Q. Mendoza, Jr. expressed his outmost support for the AMIA village adapters saying that “we will later gather and organize all our organic agriculture, integrated pest management and good agricultural practices farmers to form into an association and eventually guide them towards agripreneurship which have a niche in the local market.###

Story by James Earl Ogatis & Photos by Ellimar Milloren