What The Soil Has To Offer

When up to 10 metres of mud covered his land—and houses around the neighbourhood — Danielo Tanyhan (all names changed) did not know what to do. Logs were everywhere. The mud covered the soil, and the farmer could not see the field on which he had planted on before. Typhoons devastated the fertile land of the Philippines districts of Banglos and Ilog in November 2004 and killed 1000 to 2000 people. After immediate disaster relief, Operation Compassion, a local nongovernmental organisation (NGO) and partner of CBM, started a psychosocial rehabilitation programme, which included livelihood opportunities for farmers, targeting about 1,500 people.

"We felt sad and did not know where to begin," said Danielo (55). Danielo lost a hand tractor and three carabaos, which he had used on the fields before the typhoon struck. Now, Danielo needed to borrow a carabao for tilling the ground. All that remained with him was one horse and a wooden plow he used by hand.

The disaster in Quezon Province, one of the poorest on the island paradise of the Philippines, even forced the river Agos into an new riverbed, so that Danielo’s district of Banglos was divided into two parts, houses and once-fertile farming grounds were permanently ruined.

Silt and acidic soil washed down from the mountains overran their farms rendering the soil unsuited for the planting of rice. Danielo is a strong man, thin, but used to work hard. But he had no idea where to begin to ease his predicament. Rice fields had been the crop of choice in the area since ancient times, and people’s lives were determined by what the soil gave to them.

Then, two young girls came and talked to him about the soil, the mud, and the market. Sarah Ricardo (25) and Teresa Sebastian (23) are agriculturists who were sent by Operation Compassion. The job of the two young experts is to help farmers in the typhoon-affected areas to recover from the devastation and find other ways of planting and fertilizing the grounds. Danielo, the experienced farmer, listened—even though he thought that the soil was not appropriate for planting string beans and other vegetables. But, he didn’t have many choices left, and so Danielo planted what the young girls told him to plant on his 5000 square metres.

The advice the young Filipinas gave was based on soil testing and on know-how about fertilizers and farming technology they acquired during their studies at the college of agriculture at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, Laguna. Sarah and Teresa stayed in Banglos for 1 year to advise the families of farmers how they could restart their business in a new way. "We told them to plant different crops instead of only one and change the crop depending on soil and weather conditions. So that if your crop doesn’t make it, the risk is less, as long as you have planted others," said Sarah. People couldn’t apply fertilizers and plant the same crops as before, because the soil condition had deteriorated. But, the girls proved the families that there was a way of getting fruit out of the soil again, by showing them which fertilizers they could use now.

The advice, seeds, and farming technology Danielo received from Operation Compassion with support also from the community eventually bore fruit. His first harvest after the mud disaster was in 2005, and it was good—eggplants and corn. Other crops the 191 supported families in Banglos and Ilog planted included sweet potatoes, string beans, squash, cassava, corn, peanuts, and watermelons. Sarah and her colleague introduced new marketing strategies, "we told them to go against the time and sell the crops in the rainy season", and with new crops such as vegetables and ground nuts and new ways of farming and fertilizing, the people of Banglos were able to adapt to the new situation. Danielo, together with many other families, had a good harvest this year and it showed that they had found a way of becoming a little less dependent on what the present soil in their farms offered them.

Read more: Raising Hopes for the Future - Savings Programme as an Introduction of Post-Disaster-Counselling
Further information: Marks on People’s Minds - The Scars The Philippines Typhoons Disaster Left Behind

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