Rice experts learn of ‘green’ worms, agri-aqua farming
At a nearby technology farm in barangay San Isidro, Calauan town, the rice experts’ fellow farming specialists who are engaged in other agriculture as well as aquaculture farming techniques get their share of knowledge about hybrid Philippine-Indian “submarino” rice varieties, which could survive as much as two weeks of being submerged underwater during wet seasons and help solve rice shortage and insufficiency in the country.
Visitors at the 11-hectare Center for Rural Technology Development (CRTD) of the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) last week included IRRI senior specialist Charizabel T. Fortunado, research manager and agricultural engineer Eugenio C. Castro Jr., scientist Alvaro M. Pamplona, and fellow biotechnologist and agronomist Manuel S. Alejar.
Arlan L. Adorada, PBSP-CRTD manager, led a tour of the IRRI delegation last Wednesday [6 April] in explaining the concept of vermiculture and vermicompost fertilizers, which comes from the root word vermin or pests, like rats or roaches.
But in this case, the good vermin in the form of African nightcrawler worms have been crucial in CRTD’s agricultural production of vegetables such as lettuce, eggplant, okra, and gourds like ampalaya and upo, and in orchard fruit varieties as durian, pomelo, rambutan, papaya, calamansi, banana, and dragonfruit. The farm also develops herbs and spices such as basil, rosemary, oregano, lemon grass (tanglad), pepper, tomato, and kangkong, variously called in English as river spinach, water glorybind, or swamp cabbage.
Commercial production of vermicompost primarily involves quality organic fertilizers with the product names CRTD Primo®, Duo®, and Trio®, as well as the production of earthworm biomass through vermiculture technology.
Adorada told IRRI delegates that the farm has been practicing minimum-to-zero waste management, with almost no wastes going out of the farm as these are used as fertilizers themselves.
He said among CRTD’s clients and buyers of such products as nitrogen- and potassium-rich vermicompost fertilizers are institutional organizations, private industries, personal hobbyists, farmers and farming entrepreneurs, middlemen, and others.
Of the total 11.4-hectare CRTD facility, 0.85 hectares have been developed into vermiculture, of which 0.60 hectares are for commercial vermi-production and 0.25 hectares for vermi-based farming systems development (FSD).
The biggest bulk went to agri production areas for 4.4 hectares of rice as well as banana and rambutan for a total 7.2 hectares, plus areas for pasture production of napier grass. The next biggest is into tilapia nursery-hatchery and production at 1.57 hectares, and other aqua-based farming at 0.63 hectares, like those for cream dory (Pangasius hypophthalmus).
Livestock farming such as duck egg (balut) production to supply sellers in Pateros, Metro Manila covers 0.44 hectares, while other fruit-based farms such as for durian and dragonfruit cover 0.38 hectares. The CRTD training center itself covers 0.32 hectares.
The farm has also developed feeds for dairy cattle and hog fattening as well as swine breeding, plus value-added technologies on meat processing which have produced chemical-free tocino, tapa, and longganisa. It has also been involved in the production of nitrogenous plants like trichantera, flemingia, and madre de cacao, among others.
Marinette L. Talag, CRTD information service specialist and training officer, said the center aimed to provide appropriate farming technologies to help reduce poverty and hunger, improve the health of Filipino farmers and consumers, and protect the environment through sustainable approaches in farm production and enterprise.
Talag said CRTD also aimed to serve as a laboratory for developing, testing, validating, and disseminating agri technologies through farming systems development and management, product sales and marketing via the supply chain, technology dissemination and promotion through training curricula development, information technology, and education and communications materials.
In partnership with the Laguna State Polytechnic University (LSPU) and the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), PBSP-CRTD has also maintained its Farmers’ Information and Technology Services (FITS) Center, which has served as an access to agricultural information and technology transfer for farmers, non-government groups, and other clients.