Farming in the desert COACHELLA DESERT FARMERS SHOW FOOD PRODUCTION IN BARREN LAND

By Manny Piñol

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

― Marcel Proust, French poet

Coachella Desert, Southern California – Even at my age, I am still continuously amazed at the new things I discover in the course of my travels.

The few days which I spent in California following a trip to Mexico last week, allowed me to make two quick trips to the vast Coachella Desert in Southern California near the border of Mexico.

The trip, arranged by Manny Pacquiao publicist Winchell Campos, brought me and my godson, Jeff de Guzman, to an amazing food production area in the middle of barren land, an experience which opened my eyes to a totally new realm in agriculture.

Agriculture in the desert lands of Coachella has given me a new perspective on how to produce food even in the most arid land.

Rocky French, the Fil-Am aquaculture expert who is one of America’s pioneers in inland Tilapia fishfarming, helped me discover and understand the secrets of Coachella’s success in agriculture.

“There are two very important factors in successful farming, – water and sunlight. The soil only serves as the anchor for the plants. This is the basic philosophy of agriculture in the desert,” Rocky explained to me as he showed me a vast plantation of bell peppers which Coachella Desert is known for.

Rocky says farming in the desert has become very successful because of modern technology which completely overturns old agricultural practices in other countries, including the Philippines.

“Our fathers and grandfathers in the Philippines followed old tradition and practices in agriculture like the belief that planting should be done at the onset of the rainy season,” he explained.

“But the problem with planting during the rainy season is you could not control the volume of water that would fall on your fields. When rains fall while your crops are flowering, the flowers would fall,” Rocky said.

The desert, where rains are virtually unknown, has allowed the farmers to control the conditions for agriculture.

“Here, the absence of rains has allowed the farmers to program their planting and harvesting. The farmer schedules his planting so that harvesting would fall at the time the prices of his products are at the highest level,” Rocky said.

The success of Coachella agriculture, Rocky says, is mainly the availability of modern equipment and the availability of planting materials at the specific time the farmers would like to plant.

There is a company in Coachella Valley, the Headstart Nursery, which supplies nursery grown plantlets, not seeds, which are ready for planting based on the schedule of the farmers.

“Say, if you would like to plant bell pepper by the hundreds of thousands, all that you need to do is go to Headstart well ahead of time and tell them that you would need the planting materials on a designated date,” Rocky explained.

“They could stunt the growth of the seedlings in their nursery according to the instructions of the farmers and this effectively shortens the production period in the field,” he said.

“On the date the farmer is scheduled to plant, Headstart will deliver the planting materials ready for planting, all of the same age and the same size,” he said.

The planting is mechanized thus a field of about 100 acres could be planted according to the program desired by the farmer.

With a well-planned planting, the farmers harvest their crops on a specific date when the demand for their produce is at its highest in the market.

“We have to change our views on agriculture and free ourselves from the age-old practices which has stunted the growth of the agriculture sector in the Philippines,” Rocky said.

Indeed, Philippine agriculture must undergo an overhaul. The primitive mindset and the antiquated practices must give way to modern agricultural innovations to be able to produce enough food for the 110 million Filipinos today and the many millions more in the future.

My experience in Coachella Valley has given me new eyes in agriculture.

Now, I understand that what we refer to in the Philippines as land with “poor” and “unproductive” soil could yet be a production area for food given the right farming technology.

Now, I realize that I do not have to wait for the rains to plant and that indeed all that I need to grow my plants would be water and sunlight and the land as the anchor.

(Photos show a vast plantation of bell peppers, all of the same age and the same size; a dwarf mango profusely flowering; a seedbed for Malunggay; Kakawate seedlings; bell pepper and watermelon plantlets ready for planting supplied by Headstart Nursery. Photos by Jeff de Guzman)