By Manny Piñol
The Department of Agriculture (DA) has adopted tree farming as an agricultural activity and promotes the planting of fruit-bearing trees like Cacao and Coffee in undulating and sloping areas of the country to address serious environmental problems affecting agriculture and fisheries – landslides, soil erosion and flooding in the agricultural production areas.
The shift of focus to these two farming activities was prompted by the spate of landslides and flooding which was observed during the last few years.
Even President Rody Duterte, during his visit to the flood-hit Bicol Region last weekend, wondered aloud why in recent years there has been an increasing number of landslides which killed hundreds.
He said that he noticed the “loosening of the soil” which resulted in landslides during typhoons and storms.
President Duterte is right. The cutting down of trees and the clearing of mountains to give way to settlements have contributed to the “loosening of the soil.”
The yearly damage to agriculture is a result of the flooding in the vast agricultural valleys like Cagayan Valley, Pampanga and Bulacan Basins, Bicol River Basin, Agusan River Basin and the Rio Grande de Mindanao River basin.
The siltation which eventually ends up in the coastal areas also destroys corals in fishing grounds.
The DA is proposing two major efforts to address the problem:
1. The immediate dredging of the major rivers of the country including Cagayan River, Pampanga River, Bicol River, Rio Grande de Mindanao and the mouth of the Agusan River.
Dredging these rivers would end the water backflows and flooding during the typhoon and rainy season and open hundreds of thousands of hectares of fertile areas to agriculture.
The dredged silt from these rivers, presumably peat soil, could be used in reinvigorating the fertility of the farmlands near the river basins.
2. On the long-term, the DA, in coordination with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the local government units must intensify on the program to introduce tree farming, especially fruit bearing trees, in the sloping and undulating agricultural areas of the country.
The DA has already started this program with the planting of Falcata trees in the Ancestral Domain Areas of the Indigenous People under the 4Ks Program or the Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran ng Kababayang Katutubo.
The local government units will also have to be engaged in implementing the new policy of the DA to discourage the use of weed killers in sloping and undulating areas where farmers plant corn and other cash crops.
The dredging of the major rivers is an expensive and daunting undertaking but it must be done as an immediate remedy to minimize the flooding and the destruction of agricultural crops during the typhoon and rainy season.
The benefits from the planting of trees, especially fruit bearing trees, in the undulating and sloping agricultural areas may not be felt immediately but this is something which must be done today for the benefit of the next generation.
(Images and photos of the major rivers were downloaded from public websites.)
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