Field survey, reference marking and general mapping of occupied areas in the Mt. Makiling Forest Reserve (MFR) [Philippines]

Farmer occupants were generally males, married, with an average age of 53 years, and of a typical Filipino nuclear family type with less than 6 members. Though members of their households were relatively young, they were more or less already economically productive, thus resulting to a low dependency ratio. Many of the farmers belonged to the second or even third generation of farmers. These were the younger farmers. More than half of the farmer-occupants were not affiliated with any formal organization of PO [people's organization]. Many were actual tiller and solely rely on farming for their livelihood. Only about 40% of the occupants have secondary occupation. Since majority relied on farming, the farmers should be encouraged to practice sustainable farming systems. Generally, the farmers do not reside inside the forest reserve but only manage their farms located therein. In some cases, there are farmers whose farmlots being claimed are located not in the barangay [village] where they reside but in other nearby barangays or municipalities, such as Alaminos and Calauan, both in Laguna province. There is a high concentration of farmers in Barangay Bitin, Bay, Laguna. This is attributed to its being partly within the reserve and the existence of the Philippine Geothermal Inc. facilities in the barangay, provides somehow access to the reserve and sometimes serve as pull factor to farmer-migrants. Majority of the farmers was claiming only one farm parcel. Only a few have 2 to 5 parcels. A total of 507 farm parcels were being claimed by the farmers in MFR. Average farm size was 1.7 hectares and those having more parcels had as much as 14 hectares. Most of the farms were acquired before 1990, with the highest number registered between the period's 1950-earlier and 1981-1990. The mode of acquisition was generally through inheritance. Year farming started jibed with the years farm were acquired, although there were some farmers who started working on the farm even this has not yet been inherited. Internal buying of rights over claimed farmlots is occurring in MFR. In buying the farm parcel, the plants grown and the rights to occupy that certain area were the ones bought. So it was not the land itself that was paid for on the transaction, but the plants and the rights over the area. Almost all the farmers intend to continue farming in MFR for the rest of their lives. However, only small percentage of farmers would like their children to continue farming in MFR. They aspired to provide good college education for their children.