Sagada turns to gardening from tourism due to Covid
>> Friday, May 29, 2020
HAPPY WEEKEND
Gina Dizon
SAGADA, Mountain
Province – The dreaded Covid-19 pandemic has heavily hit the tourism
industry of this town making residents turn to gardening the past two months of
lockdown to tide things over.
Idle lots
have been turned to busy gardens with local folks planting traditional crops
like legumes, corn and rice while others planted tree seedlings like coffee,
bamboo and citrus. Other popular veggies are bell pepper, cabbage and tomatoes.
Cleared
gardens and rice fields could be seen in central Sagada and outskirts of the town.
Geraldine
Tauli, a retailer of fertilizers said she sold nearly 20 sacks of ‘complete’
NPK- nitrogen phosphorus potassium fertilizer March and April due to
the gardening trend. “In the same months in previous years, only one sack of 'complete' fertilizer was purchased and that was bought by three to five gardeners.” One
sack is equal to 50 kilograms.
Buyers of
Furadan, a worm killer in rice fields used also as pesticide for corn and other
crops doubled with 100 packs sold the past three months, she added.
Tauli is one
among three major fertilizer/pesticide retailers in the main town.
A few others
are located in the outskirts of the municipality. Some farmers buy fertilizer
in the capital town of Bontoc, a 45-minute ride from here.
Even before
the pandemic, resident farmers went into part time or full time gardening.
Others who ventured into farming since start of the lockdown included some 900
tourist guides, 150 homestay owners, 50 souvenir shops owners, masseurs, resto
and café shop proprietors totaling 2,000 tourism service providers. Others were
vendors among 3,300 households and an 8,000 voting population of this tourist
town.
With no more
tourists during this Covid pandemic lockdown, a number of tourism service
providers went into gardening and other economic activities.
Mario, a
tourist guide has time now to do gardening which he used to do before and which
he stopped during the busy tourism days the past years. He planted
corn and soy beans on a 500 square meter patch of land his grandmother tended
before having planted taro/gabi and bananas.
Beans and
corn are traditional crops folks here plant during the first rainy days in
March on to May in time for the harvest by July to August before rats come
scurrying around. Those who are late in planting have to contend with rats who
eat their plants if they don’t go with the viable months for planting.
Local folks
did gardening then 12 months a year starting late months. Camote gardens were
dug while gardens were readied for planting corn while beans were planted
during the first rains in March on to April. Harvest time is July
and August.
Rice fields
are planted around December and palay harvested by July and August. Such fields
are turned into gardens and planted with camote or beans in time for harvest by
November, planted with rice again by December and the cycle begins.
Gardens were
planted with veggies and corn during Covid lockdown.
While the general
rule during this Covid pandemic is to stay home, farming was made an
exception by the Inter Agency Rask Force (IATF). The Department of
Agriculture proposed this considering farming to produce food is an essential
task.
Sagada, which
is Covid-free, is basically an agricultural town with 85% farmers doubling as
tourist service providers during its heavy tourism years in the ‘90s on to the
years of 2000 until the Corona virus hit the world March this year.
Due to
tourism, a number of residents has taken off from farming leaving their land
idle while some hired resident laborers from Belwang, Sadanga and Baklingayan,
Abra to till to their fields.
While some
did gardening full time, others were content with home gardening
planting beans, peas and pechay in pots.
Salt and
Pepper resto proprietress Safe Pekas helps a group of organic pot gardeners
encouraging them the use of the organic “bokashi” mixed with molasses to aid
plants’ growth and flowering.
With pechay
raised in abundance these months, this town will also have enough beans and
corn by July to August.
Petchay still
costs P40 per bundle. Veggies are plenty with some gardens planted with bell
pepper and tomatoes left to rot since there are simply too many of these.
There is a
need for vegetables to be preserved like making these into pickles.
Resto owner
Aurea Claravall of Sagada Brew said many tomatoes and bell pepper she harvested
from a friend’s garden were turned into
tomato sauce. She dried bell pepper for seasoning and veggie soup.
Jams and
jellies are a major product of this tourist town mainly processed by
Gabay’s and Masferre’s.
The downside
of farming in this town is the use of chemicals by some farmers. Too, some
traditional farmers make use of small doses of urea to make plants greener and
more abundant.
Some farmers
though are into organic composting particularly Binaod farmers who
encourage composting, green manuring and use of organic
pesticides.
“Conventional
farming” makes use of chemical fertilizers including commercially bought
pesticides sprayed aerially.
Meantime,
with the pandemic having practically paralyzed mobility and economy, other
households have gone into chicken raising with some having availed of the
‘sunshine’ free range chicks from the provincial government
Clement Sokoken
from the provincial office said he has delivered 1,000 chicks to Sagada
groups last April. Some are still requesting for more chicks.
Some women in tourism services went into home cooked food and sell these to neighbors and friends or sell veggies and fruits while some young men went to construction work.
Meantime, many farmers registered with
the registry system for basic sectors in agriculture (RSBA) of the
Department of Agriculture are awaiting P25,000 loan per farmer-
borrower under the survival and recovery (SURE) loan
assistance of the government agency which aims to provide immediate
relief to small farmers and fisherfolk.
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