The rains of December

In the Philippines and other tropical Asian climate, the rainy or wet season is from June to October. Before the current climate change, until about 15 years ago or earlier, the wet season would start by May. This year, considered as among the hottest, if not the hottest year over the last few decades, regular rains came only in August, rather late. With delayed rains, regular planting of rice and other food staples was also delayed. So last August, I had wished that the rains would last until December, to “compensate” for the delayed onset of regular rainy season.

Last month and until the first half of this month, rains would come regularly, either induced by some typhoons or a cold front or the clouds just converged by themselves and they became heavy and they fell as rains. And it was a good thing. Many rice farmers who were hesitant to plant for the second cropping were encouraged by those rains and they did plant as the rivers and streams were still regularly replenished by regular rains.

Some sectors or industries of the economy like tourism, were of course a bit unhappy with those rains in an otherwise “cold but dry” months of November-December, until February. Typhoons and heavy rains would naturally result in cancellation of some flights or boat trips, and beaches are not so enjoyable if the waves are big. There were actually fewer typhoons this year, only about 13 so far, compared with the 19 to 20 that the country would normally get annually.

In our farm, I have noticed last week that some light moss or tiny green flora have appeared on the bark of some of our trees there. Those things that one can find in trees on high elevation and colder areas. I did not notice them last year or earlier years, only this year. Does this mean that our farm is getting colder while most parts of the world are getting hotter? Or those flora have evolved and they begin to appear on trees even in lower elevation or in less cold areas as a result of global warming?

I do not know the answer, but I suspect that the rains of the past few months and the colder season of December, have conspired with our now bigger and taller trees which provide refuge and “natural umbrella” from the hot rays of the sun. This is a good development even at the micro or farm level, at a time when the world is getting more pessimistic or alarmist about climate change.

Agri development, East Asia vs. Africa

I think what distinguishes (north and south) East Asian experience in agrarian reform and agricultural development compared to that in African experience, is that in the former, there is strong entrepreneurial component. Maybe it's because of the "Confucian ethics" (see how hard-working are the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Taiwanese, Hong Kongers, Singaporeans, for instance) or similar philosophical or religious beliefs, but there is strong entrepreneurial spirit even among many Asian farmers. The desire to produce for a surplus beyond the household's regular consumption needs, sell the surplus output to buy new farm inputs + household needs like appliances, etc.

Even Hanoi City and Vietnam as a whole, although it is under a communist government, private entrepreneurship is very much alive. Rice farmers produce plenty of rice for export to other countries in Asia and elsewhere. Vegetable farmers produce extra for profit in the cities and abroad.

If farmers have sufficient opportunity to make profit for their hard labor, they will not need much WB or ADB money for their farms, they can borrow money and farm inputs elsewhere, pay the loans after a good harvest and have extra for their farm modernization.

Meanwhile, the Philippine experience in on-going "agrarian reform" is one of the biggest hindrance to agricultural investments. Some farm entrepreneurs are reluctant to develop their farms into say, fruit orchards, because there is a threat that once the farms become productive and profitable, the government's agrarian reform officials will come in and say that the land will be under land reform and be sold to the farm workers. So the environment of uncertainty contributes to lack of agri investment.

A few typhoons this year

While Southern California was reeling from plenty of wild fires aided by very strong desert winds with gustiness up to 100 mph sometimes, Metro Manila and surrounding provinces was cloudy and wet for 3 straight days. The reason was a low-pressure area in the southern part of the country that pushed those cold winds and thick rain clouds. The low pressure area though, did not graduate to become a new typhoon.

It is now late October and so far, the Philippines has had only about 6 typhoons this year. This is unusual. The country would get around 19 to 20 typhoons a year on average. The rainy season usually ends by October, with occasional rains falling by November and December. The country's weather bureau, PAG-ASA, earlier announced that "La Nina" phenomenon might extend the rainy season until December this year. Lucky for us if this happens, because the rainy season was delayed by 2 months this year. Instead of May or June, the regular rains came by August.

Of course, less typhoons means less destruction. Last year, the country experienced about 2 super-typhoons -- typhoons with winds more than 200 kph. One typhoon, localled called "Milenyo", packed winds up to 250 kph, so it knocked down thousands of trees, electrical posts, houses and giant billboards. Many people were also killed, and much plentier were rendered homeless and injured. This year, we are lucky that we don't have such kind of super-typhoons.

Since early this year though, the price of rice and other agricultural products have been rising. The delayed rains middle of this year is among the main reasons. Delayed rains meant delayed planting, and hence, delayed harvesting. Many rice farmers are just harvesting their first cropping in the previous weeks, when they should have already planted rice in the second cropping.

Meanwhile, dams for irrigation and/or hydro power plants have not fully stock enough water for the coming dry and rainless months. One beauty of plenty of typhoons is that they pour plenty of rains for the fields and the dams. With few typhoons, we had less rains to fill up our dams.

Seeds of certain forest species

Planting trees is fun, and you should protect them to become big trees someday -- so you can cut some of them and build your own wooden house from the trees you have planted a decade or 2 ago, some you can keep so you can tie long hammock to lie down and sleep, or play with your children or grand children someday.

Watching the big trees producing their own seeds is also fun. Some tidbits about the seeds of some trees.

1. Mahogany -- among the fastest-growing hard wood species.
The seeds are lumped on one bundle of brown, oblong-shape thick cover, lit ooks like chiko fruits, but much bigger. Inside this bundle is around 65 seeds on average. A seed has a wing on its tail. So when that bundle matures, it releases the seeds from the tree, and the seeds fall and fly like small rotor blades of helicopters, enabling the seeds to travel farther, thus ensuring that they can perpetuate their specie to a much wider area. One mature tree can produce thousands of seeds per year. Even assuming that only 5 to 10% of those seeds would grow to become young saplings, there are hundreds of new saplings (or seedlings?) of them that grow around or near the mother tree.

2. Narra -- the Philippines' "national tree".
This is slow-growing, but hard wood quality. The seeds are small, enrircled by tiny layer that acts like wings too. So when the seeds fall from the mother tree, they can fly away if there's a strong wind, ensuring the preservation of their specie to far away places. Narra can produce lots of branches, so if you want to produce long and huge trunks someday, you should plant them close to each other (2x2 meters distance initially, later make them 4x4 by removing the trees in the middle).

Note: birds don't eat the seeds of these 2 trees. The seeds are big for most birds, and they don't seem to taste yummy for the birds too.

3. Acacia auri, acacia mangium, eucalyptus, others -- are fast-growing.
But you can hardly see their seeds, very small. Some bird species eat their seeds, when the birds make po-po, they scatter the seeds to far away places. Of course there are forestry techniques how these very small seeds can be collected and planted to produce seedlings.

Other trees that have very tiny seeds are benguet pine (like the trees you see in Baguio), ordinary pine trees, some local dipterocarp species like molave.

Making tree planting real tree growing

People who are serious in "tree growing" and not just "tree planting" do NOT plant trees at the end of the rainy season, ie, end-October or November. They plant in June (or late May), at the start of the rainy season. Those seedlings are still frail, unless they are at least 3 feet tall already, meaning their roots and stems are already hardened from strong sunlight.

My observation as a practitioner of agro-forest farming for more than a decade now, is that if you plant at the end of the rainy season, and you don't water them for the next 5 months at least, plus the necessary cleaning of undesirable weeds and vines that compete for sunlight and soil minerals, survival rate of those seedlings after 1 year is only around 10%, you're lucky if you get 20-25% survival. The rest are dead, sayang ang pagod, sayang ang seedlings. And if grass fires occur (they usually occur anywhere from January to May), you'll have zero survival. The tree planting activity then would be good only for picture-taking and project reporting.

Whereas if you plant at the start of the rainy season, you save on labor and watering for at least 5 months straight. By the time the rainy season has ended, the seedlings have already developed strong roots that will allow them to penetrate deeper sub-soil for water and minerals. That is why survival rate is much higher.

If the seedlings are still small, ie shorter than 3 feet tall, better keep the seedlings in one place, remove the small plastic bags that hold their roots, put the seedlings in bigger plastic bags, add more soil, water them regularly, and plant them June the next year, at the start of the rainy season. By then, the seedlings should be at least 4 feet tall, would have vigorous roots and will have much bigger probability of survival. Those who will plant the seedlings would also be glad to see that the small tree they have planted are already tall, taller than grasses and weeds.

Groups that are intent on planting at the end of the rainy season should allot more money to hire laborers who will regularly water those plants, remove the competing grasses and vines, apply fertilizers (organic or inorganic), and replant those that died. The cost here should be higher. Nonetheless, people should be aware that it should be a "tree growing", not just a "tree planting", activity.

Finally, for people who want to see real big trees someday, better that they buy lands in the provinces, just a few hectares, and do what they want or plant what they want. If they want "bio-diversity", they can plant several dozens of different species of trees, from fast-growing commercial species to slow-growing, dipterocarp and vanishing species. The area can be made later into an income-generating eco-tourism resort, or for bird (or some wild life) research sanctuary, the options are unlimited.

Planting trees on lands you do not own, especially if it is "public forest land", meaning "owned and managed" by the DENR, is very often a waste of time. It is because if you have open access to plant those trees in those lands, other people also have the same access to cut those trees on those lands someday. The DENR is the biggest manager of lands in this country (in behalf of the state that owns all lands). It is also the lousiest and laziest manager/s. If you want to check or refute this, try to visit any nearby "public forest land" and estimate the percentage of that area that still has thick forest cover.

Stone terraces and water logging

Building stone terraces on sloping and hilly areas of a farm serve three main functions. One, conserve precious top soil and organic matter like decomposing and dried leaves and branches, from unmitigated erosion. Two, conserve water and minimize water run-off during strong rains, reduce flash floods, as rain water seep into the soft ground, even recharging the water table underground. And three, help beautify the farm.

Through time, with continued building of stone terraces – whether raising higher or moving backwards existing ones -- low-lying areas will be rising and uneven areas become flatter. In addition, it is possible that spring water can develop later at the bottom of high terraces as more rain water are deposited deep in the new soil created by the rising land. If the farmer is entrepreneurial enough, he can develop his farm into an eco-tourism resort with those spring waters and beautiful, high, and plentiful terraces around the farm.

So the terraces and the land become higher. One big question that will bug the farmer is whether to cement those stone terraces, or leave those stones as they are?

The advantage of cemented stone terraces is that the structures become more stable and more permanent. Like the various rice terraces in the Cordillera mountains in north Philippines, particularly the Banaue rice terraces in Ifugao. These terraces were “cemented” using special clay and strengthened by small and rough stones that fill in large spaces in-between the large stones. The terraces have been in existence for more than 1,000 years and they have withstood minor earthquakes.

There are three big disadvantages though. One, new layers of organic farm waste like rice straws, dried leaves and branches of trees, can no longer be accommodated by the terraces because the stones are no longer movables. So upland farmers just burn the rice straw every year, the same practice being done by lowland rice farmers. Two, water logging can be a real problem if there are not enough outlet. So that either the big volume of water trapped behind those terraces will destroy the structure through time, or the roots will be suffocated as water will fill in tine air spaces underneath. And three, if there are big trees near the cemented terraces, the roots show their hatred to cement by bulging wide and high, eventually destroying the structure.

Terraces that are not cemented and continuously adjusted upwards and/or backwards, have the disadvantage of being less stable, especially if they are not constructed well. But they have the advantages of avoiding the 3 pitfalls of cemented terraces mentioned above. In particular, the terraces are porous, water can come out anytime on thousands of spaces between the stones, so that probability of water logging is small. Except of course during very heavy rainfall where flash floods are occurring anywhere.

Urban flooding and the cement jungle

Metro Manila and many big urban sprawls around the world are more susceptible to large-scale flash flooding than those in their counterpart rural areas. And such flooding is highlighted in broadcast media like TV, radio, newspapers and the web. Well, majority of those media centers are based in the big cities, that’s why.

But there are certain characteristics of urban areas that make them more susceptible to wide flooding than those in rural areas, on per hectare or per square kilometer comparison. I see a number of reasons for this.

One, with a few exception, big cities and urban sprawls are located in the lowlands like mouth of seas, bays and big rivers. Hence, by the simple law of gravity, all rain water runoff will pass by these big cities until it gets out onto the seas.

Two, construction and repair of drainage and canals sometimes lag behind structural developments surrounding these waterways. For instance, space (like width and depth) for canals can be sacrificed when buildings and other structures are maximizing each square meter of land that it can develop.

And three, the cement jungle. Most rain water, especially if the rain is not strong, are supposed to seep down the soil and not drain onto canals, if the land surface is not cemented. But with all those houses and buildings, schools and malls, roads and sidewalks, parking lots and other open areas that are cemented, the volume of rainwater that go into canals and drainage becomes big. And the heavier the rains, some canals and drainage can overflow, resulting in ever bigger and deeper flood.

But growing urbanization and the desire of people to get rid of mud and slippery surface when these get wet makes the cement jungle expand ever wider.

One solution to this problem is to have more open spaces and non-cemented land in cities and communities. Examples are community parks and gardens, urban forest parks, and golf courses. Many environmentalists will not like or realize this, but the open space for grass and trees of those golf courses help absorb huge volume of rain water to seep into the soil and not fall into drainage and canals. Although it's true that during the dry season, these golf courses also use huge amount of water to irrigate those grasses to keep them healthy. But it's the trade off if we want to have more open spaces that absorb rain water, not to mention recharge the underground water table.

Another solution, a minor one, is that in constructing open parking spaces, the surface should not be cemented, and use crushed stones to prevent the surface from getting muddy while allowing the rainwater to seep below the ground.

Farming and government support

My friend from Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, Nguyen Chi Trung, also a batchmate from SUS 2003 seminar on "sustainable agriculture" held in Sweden, commented on my earlier posting re. government support on farming. He wrote,

"Dear Nonoy and friends, I completely agree with you that farmers should not expect so much from support and subsidy in any form. However, at least in this stage, the number of independent farmers like yourself is not much, and remember that farming is your moonlight play, not the main livelihood. For most farmers, subsidy is still playing an important role. Generally speaking, most farmers could not attend my lectures, if I were not paid by the state or a project. Similarly, I could have never been attended the SUS 2003 training without the kind sponsor from SIDA."

Well, Trung is right. Before I get misinterpreted, let me say that I am not advocating zero government support in agriculture. One government support that I see is very helpful to farmers, are farm-to-market roads and bridges, and irrigation. Good roads support not only farmers but also their children who go to school, their spouses who go the public markets, etc. But beyond infrastructure support, the impact of most government support to farmers are little. Like price support and credit support.

Many agricultural economists and consultants propose that governments should focus on "production support", not "price support", like government buying "high" from farmers and selling "low" to consumers. In this kind of scheme, a lot of waste and corruption are happening.

For the "independent farmers", they are driven more by bigger profit when they harvest their crops and fruits, and less of any subsidy that they can get from government. For mango producers like Cocor Soriano (SUS 2006) and me, there are almost zero government support for mango production, but we continue producing because the price of mango is good very often, not to mention that our families and friends get to taste our very sweet mangos.