On-farm conservation, ecological protection and income generation for sustainable agriculture in a coconut growing community: a case study in Tungkalan, Davao City, Philippines
2008
Manohar, E.C. | Caro, E.T. | Sancha, L.V., Philippine Coconut Authority, Diliman, Quezon City (Philippines)
Coconut is a major source of livelihood in rural communities. Despite this,poverty is still prevalent in these areas due to low productivity and most farmers' depends solely on copra trading. Hence, there is an urgent need for planting materials and diversification of products to address the problem of poverty. In this context, the PCA-COGENT Poverty Reduction Project tested the four-pronged income-generating strategies in selected coconut growing communities. It involved strategies to complement the farmer-based biodiversity conservation and increase the incomes of rural poor. Income-generating activities such as intercropping and livestock/poultry integration other coconut-based processing and establishing a community-managed nursery with 5,600 coconut seedlings intended for planting of farmer participants to improve productivity were adopted at project site in Tungkalan, Toril, Davao City, by Tungkalan Coconut Farmers Cooperative. Moreover, this compulsary coconut planting contributes to climate change mitigation considering that it can sequeter 7 ton/ha/year of carbon (Roupsard, et al. 2002). As one of the projects interventions farm-wastes utilization for organic fertilizer production was tried both for ecological and economic considerations. Coconut husks and poultry manure were processed into bioorganic fertilizer (BOF). At present, BOF are being produced commercially and proven to be profitable with initial ROI of 29.27% and will be doubled onwards. Organically grown vegetables and fruit trees are also available in the community and gardeners in the vicinity are being supplied with BOF by the TCFC. It is envisioned that a doable sustainable coconut Farm Waste Recycling System is practiced in each coconut farm. Thus, massive production of coconut seedlings for planting and farm waste utilization are of high ecological and economic value for the development of the community.
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