Sagada turns to gardening from tourism due to Covid

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.