News Feature: Organic fertilizer making in Ilocos Sur yields good food, good life

By Imelda C. Rivero

Sunday 1st of July 2012

Galimuyod, Ilocos Sur, July 1 (PIA) -- Good food, good life, good environment. These are what residents get from making and using organic fertilizer, according to Ilocos Sur Provincial Agriculture Officer Teofilo Quintal in a radio interview on his way to this town for the five-day organic fertilizer making seminar-workshop which started yesterday.

Quintal said that about 60 teachers, barangay officials, farmers, and residents of this town gathered for this event to make life as healthy as possible through organic farming. Organic farming started here with backyard and school gardening. And slowly, farmers are using organic fertilizer instead of the chemical type.

Now, they are learning the best way to produce organic fertilizer and that is, with the use of earthworms that are known to help in decomposition, and keeping the soil moist. The participants are using the African nightcrawlers (Eudrilus eugeniae), which are commonly used in commercial vermicomposting in the country. Vermicomposting is the process of composting using species of worms such as earthworms, red wigglers, white worms to decompose raw materials. Vermicompost is, therefore rich in nutrients making it an excellent organic fertilizer and soil conditioner, Quintal said.

Raw materials for making organic fertilizer is bountiful in farming barangays. Trees around houses yield heaps of leaves. And this rainy season, grass and weeds carpet every soil surface under the sun. Much more so during harvest time when rice hay and corn leaves, stalks, and husks are so abundant that farmers even burn them. Instead of burning leaves and post harvest materials, farmers and residents must compost their wastes, Quintal explained.

Residents in this town, he observed, as in all those from upland towns, follow what the agriculture office had been teaching them. So, they will reap good food, good environment, and good life Quintal added. (ANL/ICR-PIA 1, Ilocos Sur)