SPECIAL REPORT: South Cotabato farmers future-proofing rice in an uncertain climate
STO. NIÑO, South Cotabato (MindaNews / 31 March) — Prescila Gomez checks her rice field in Barangay San Vicente on a Wednesday afternoon after a long day from work, dreading the rain that is about to fall from the skies. Work is at the municipal hall, seven kilometers away where she is administrative aide at the Municipal Agriculturist Office.
Prescila, 33, was worried the newly planted rice might not survive the extreme heat all day, then battered by strong rain that has been bugging the whole week.
This is her third cropping—while most rice farmers only do two—for the rice field that’s almost one hectare. Prescila’s crop calendar starts in June for the first planting; the next in October, which she harvested last January; and this third crop in February.
She and her 37-year-old husband Jetcer are among the rice farmers from Sto Niño who are largely dependent on rice not only as a source of livelihood but as main staple food for the family. Jetcer works in a rice mill operated by a cooperative in neighboring Surallah municipality, and thus can help in the farm only when not on duty, like when MindaNews visited their farm in March because the rice mill was being repaired.
Prescila thus spends more time cultivating the farm—by her lonesome when she was not pregnant, but now hires laborers to help her out.
Prescila will soon be a mother of three. Her eldest is 10 years old, and the second is 8. As a mother who will soon have to feed three little mouths, she can only hope for her rice to survive under extreme weather conditions and be harvested on time.
It is during these times that she realizes the critical role of seed banking in the community to spare the future of her children from the doom of the changing climate.
Climate-resilient rice, climate-resilient community
The Philippines, due to its geographical location, is a country known to be more frequented by typhoons than anywhere else in the world, averaging 20 tropical cyclones per year, with about 8 to 9 of these crossing the country, according to the state weather bureau, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration.
Being prone to tropical cyclones, which produce heavy rains and floods affecting large areas, the country is vulnerable to destruction of crops and agricultural produce.
The Philippine Statistics Authority reported in 2020 that damages incurred due to natural extreme events and disasters amounted to ₱463 billion from 2010 to 2019. Agriculture posted the largest share with 62.7 percent or ₱290 billion.
Typhoon Odette in 2022, as reported by the Department of Agriculture, left the agriculture industry with an estimated damage and losses costing ₱13 billion, at around 470,000 hectares of agricultural areas across 11 regions in the Visayas, Mindanao and Palawan.
Recently, Typhoon Kristine in October 2024 single-handedly logged an estimated agricultural damage nationwide of ₱6.20 billion, with losses recorded primarily in rice production at 72%. This resulted in 239,302 MT of rice losses, valued at ₱4.46 billion.
Rice, the staple food of the entire country, is continuously at risk with the extreme weather changes.
The environmental crisis demands a rethink on the way this staple is produced and preserved. Maybe there are lessons to learn from communities such as the farmers in Sto. Niño.
While the majority of farmers struggle, members of MASIPAG (Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura, a farmer-led network of people’s organizations and scientists established in the 1980s) have managed to thrive and be spared from the extreme weather conditions through their organically-grown and climate-resilient rice varieties.
MASIPAG members have bred climate-resilient crops in response to adverse agro climatic conditions brought about by climate change, documenting the process in a bid to secure the staple food. They have likewise gathered and documented existing traditional rice varieties which have withstood the test of time.
MASIPAG, in its website, claims that they now have 2,000 rice varieties collected and maintained, including the traditional varieties and those bred by the farmers.
Furthermore, MASIPAG claims that they now have 12 flood-tolerant varieties, 33 drought-tolerant, 20 saltwater-tolerant, and 24 pest/disease-resistant.
For South Cotabato alone, MASIPAG’s Climate Change Resilient Rice Map said their membrers now have 29 locally-adapted varieties, 2 drought-resistant, 1 pest/disease-resistant. This is attributed to the success of community seed banks.
“The concept is that the farmers select and breed rice that will enable them to develop cultivars/breeds from traditional varieties and stocks that are adaptive to local conditions,” says Marlon Recidoro, an organic farmer and chair of the MASIPAG Mindanao Regional Project Management Team (RPMT).
The suitability of these varieties largely depend on the climate condition of the locality. “With this initiative, the farmers are empowered to have a control on what they produce, because it is farmer-led,” he adds
A study published in the Cambridge University Press in January 2018 found that MASIPAG rice varieties in organic farms are more resilient to climate change than their conventional counterparts, because the former focuses on ecological practices that improve soil health, water quality and farm biodiversity.
Seed banking, knowledge sharing
Prescila, a member of MASIPAG, comes from a family of farmers in Tambulig, Zamboanga del Sur. As young as eight years old, she had learned the beauty of seed banking from her adoptive grandfather, the late Perfecto “Ka Pecs” Vicente, one of the pioneers of MASIPAG, and considered a pillar of the country’s rice industry. He was the brains behind Republic Act 10068, or the Organic Agriculture Act of 2010.
MASIPAG works towards the sustainable use and management of biodiversity through farmers’ control of genetic and biological resources, agricultural production, and associated knowledge.
Vicente, in an article for the “Local Seed Systems for Genetic Conservation and Sustainable Agriculture Sourcebook” published in 2002, wrote that seed banking should be a living bank that ensures seedling collections will continue to evolve together with critical environment or climatic changes and pressures.
He emphasized that community seed banks should, if possible, serve as training centers for participatory plant breeding where multilines of locally adapted varieties, and selections, and farmers’ selections can be created and selected by the farmers themselves.
“This can very well provide a more stable foundation for building self-reliance among resource-poor farmers,” he noted.
For Prescila, Vicente’s lasting legacy is reflected in the seed bank she is operating, a living testament that when something is well taken care of, it becomes resilient and lasts through generations. A project of MASIPAG, the seed bank is situated in Prescila’s backyard. It now has over 60 rice varieties.
“Seed banking not only secures food but the future of the generations to come, in an uncertain climate,” she says, noting that forcing poor farmers to buy limited seed varieties from agribusiness companies will only keep them indebted.
Prescila added the seed bank has spared the farmers in their community from the drought and heavy rains since the past few years.
Being a breeder herself, she noted that the seed bank has to be coupled with continued knowledge-sharing to empower farmers.
Trial farms
Apart from the seed bank, Prescila also allotted a 50-sq.m. portion from her field as a trial farm where they can reproduce seeds and help farmers select which breed is adaptable to the climate condition of the town.
Trial farms promote in situ conservation and strengthening culture of seed sharing, establishment of seed bank that serves as a helping hand to farmers during disasters and calamities, and knowledge sharing of traditional ways promoting low-cost farming.
Prescila shares that in the trial farm, one square meter is allocated for the planting of one variety of rice. When harvest time comes, during Farmers’ Field Day, she would open the trial farm to other farmer-members to select cultivars and breed a variety with the choice of their own.
Prescila herself has bred a variety called PKP, a combination of Prescila and Ka Pecs, which is already in the backup farm of MASIPAG in Nueva Ecija.
To preserve a variety that a farmer successfully breeds, half of the yield will be brought to the backup farm for preservation, while the other half remains in the farmer’s possession for mass production, she explained.
Prescila, being one of the expert breeders, has trained many farmer-members of MASIPAG, including Emilio Dayos, 54.
Emilio has also bred Don Emilio W1, which he is massively producing and is also locally adapted in Polonoling town of South Cotabato.
Dayos, who just transitioned from conventional to organic farming in 2017, said the switch was not swift as it takes six to seven cropping seasons to perfect a variety.
However, since shifting from dependence on seedlings from commercial seed companies to varieties native to the area, he no longer needs artificial inputs like chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
“With the help of the seed bank and trial farms, I no longer rely on varieties which are not resilient to the local climate. I am in control of the variety I produce, hence there is a security in terms of yields,” he adds.
Policy mishaps
The non-profit research institute IBON Foundation reported that rice dependency of the country rose from 13.8% in 2018 to 18.5% in 2021, thus reducing the self-sufficiency from 86.2% to 81.5% in 2021, pushed by the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) or Republic Act 11203, severely fracturing the rice industry.
Leo XL Fuentes, MASIPAG Mindanao regional coordinator, told MindaNews that after a year of the implementation of the RTL in 2018, farmers in Mindanao lost around 85% income after the buying price of palay plummeted.
The country is projected to remain the largest rice importer in 2025, with imports projected at 5.5 million metric tons, according to the January 14, 2025 issue of the “Outlook” publication of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.
Fuentes maintained rather than boosting the local production, the government became heavily dependent on imported rice, benefiting only the traders and importers at the expense of farmers, who are already affected by extreme weather conditions.
The Philippine Statistics Authority reported that in 2022, for every peso spent in palay production, farmers earned an ₱0.19 to ₱0.21 for every peso of investment in palay production.
This leaves the farmers at only almost breakeven.
For Bernard Cael, from Tampakan in South Cotabato who has been an organic farmer since 2018, recalled that before the law was institutionalized, farmers could sell their palay at P23-P24 per kilo, but after the RTL, it is bought at a farmgate price as low as P12-P14 per kilo.
“Traders have robbed the farmers’ capacity to compete with the price of imported rice since there is really a difference in quality, hence most local farmers just sell their palay according to the price set by traders,” Bernard lamented.
He said the RTL has weakened local rice production, which is already devastated by climate change, not to mention the promotion of hybrid varieties designed to require higher amounts of chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
Considering the effects of climate change, Cael adds that during heavy rains, when the palay gets wet, farmers are forced to sell them at a low price, with small return of investment, rather than having no return at all.
“If the farmer will only breakeven, what will happen next? He will be indebted, and there is no assurance if there will be food left for his family,” he adds.
Organic farming is the way forward
Farming his entire life, Pacifico Palero Jr., attested that since he changed from conventional farming to organic farming in 2003, his farm has developed resilience against unexpected climate change-related issues.
Palero, already 66, yet single-handedly tills and maintains his 1.35 rice field, a five-minute walk from his house.
He shares that he had not backslided ever since and continually planted different varieties of rice in his organic farm—from Buknoy, RV-8, and now Jun 3-2 B—which are all farmer-bred varieties under MASIPAG.
“Initially, I planted RV-8 and it was good because it was aromatic. However, as I continued to plant it, the aroma was lost over time. It has to be planted alternately with other crops,” he adds. In organic farming, it is advisable to alternate crops per cropping season.
At present, Palero plants the variety Jun 3-2 B, given its resilience to the climate condition in the area. “It is resilient to heat and rain,”he adds.
He also makes his own vermicompost in his own backyard where he raises goats. He mixes the goat’s manure with food waste and vegetable scraps, and is then decomposed by earthworms. He used the end product as his organic fertilizer for his rice farm.
Palero said his farm was not spared from the attack of stem borers from his neighbor’s rice field that uses a conventional system. But since Palero employed an organic system, he was able to save his paddy.
“My neighbor spent a lot of money just to remove the stem borers,” he said in the vernacular. “I was able to save 35 sacks of palay that time; him, only 18 sacks,” he adds.
Dr. Chito Medina, an environmental scientist, noted in an interview that a conventional farming system that utilizes synthetic fertilizers emits huge amounts of nitrogen, a major contributing factor for global warming.
Emilio Dayos observed that crop yields are reduced when going organic, yet this farming method is more rewarding economically. In his conventional farming journey, his yield reachesd 50 to 60 sacks per hectare. After going organic, his yield troped to 40 to 45 sacks. (One sack contains 25 kilograms of rice.)
Dayos, however, said the production cost for organic farming is significantly lesser than in conventional farming. Hence, the lesser yield from organic farming is still more profitable.
He shares that his milled rice can be sold for P1,500 per 25 kg or about P60 per kilo, while his conventional counterparts sell their palay for P15-P16 per kilo, or depending on the trader’s speculations, which would still be lower even after milling.
In terms of health benefits, Dayos said that prior to his switch in 2017, whenever he goes home in the evening, he observed body pains, suspecting these were due to inhaling the toxins from the chemicals after the whole day of tending his farm.
His transition to organic made him confident about his family’s health in terms of the rice they consume as he himself is aware his harvest is free from chemicals.
Palero and Dayos are two of the five members of the core group of the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) under PALAI (People’s Action for Liberative Agricultural Industry Inc.) who have been authorized to provide certification to organic farming practitioners within the province of South Cotabato covering crop production and organic milled rice processing.
PALAI, which is under MASIPAG, is the first association to be accredited as PGS-Organic Certifying Body in the whole Region 12 for compliance of standards set by the Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Standards (BAFS).
At present, PALAI has 37 members aspiring to have full certification as practitioners of organic agriculture.
Not easy to switch to organic
The municipality of Sto. Niño has a total land area of 10,973 hectares, with more than half (5,580 has) of it planted with rice.
Rice is a very important crop in the municipality because it accounts for 35% of the average calorie intake of the population, and as high as 80% for households in the low income.
Municipal agriculturist Alma Fe Escosura says that Sto. Niño’s organic rice industry is still in its infancy. The area devoted to organic rice production is only about 50 hectares tilled by 35 farmers who have gone organic, she adds.
She said it is not easy for farmers to switch from conventional to organic practices as they have become heavily dependent on chemical inputs. Many of those who attempt a transition end up returning to their old ways, Escosura added.
Advancing farmer justice
Justice for farmers in the Philippines means they control their own farms and the resources used in producing food, and can contribute in combating the climate crisis, says Medina.
In other words, the government should have genuine policies beneficial to farmers, and stop providing hybrid seeds and chemical inputs, as well as stop promoting genetically modified varieties, which only drags poor farmers to debt, Medina added.
“Their argument is to feed the poor. But what happens is that when the government provides hybrid seeds, this only encourages the farmer to buy them at a much higher price in the next cropping. Ultimately, only hybrid seed producers and seed companies benefit,” he adds.
Medina believes the best response to climate change is to advance farmer-led agroecology, which gives the farmer full control of his farm aligned with their cultural priorities and needs, full control of the pricing system and full control of their seeds.
“The farmer should have sovereignty over his seeds, and the one in control of his farming system, so that he will not be indebted in trying to purchase the inputs,” he said. Medina stressed that the government should focus on farmers’ empowerment rather than promoting commercial production of inputs.
For Medina, the course is clear: farmer-led agroecology is more than empowering the farmers who are the frontliners; it is future-proofing the staple food against the uncertainties of the future. (Nova Mae Francas for MindaNews)
This story is published with the support of Canal France International under the Media for One Health program.
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