Participants haul their boxes using a trolley. Rising fertilizer costs, fuel price hikes, and rampant smuggling. Ace Estrada, co-founder of Rural Rising, believes that these are the current issues hounding Filipino farmers. To support the struggling agricultural sector, Rural Rising has made it its...
The coconut tree is called “the tree of life” because every part of it can be put to use. However, the coconut as a crop has a complicated history in the Philippines, with coconut being a high value crop while its farmers remain some of the poorest and most marginalized in the industry. A...
Several studies have shown that exposure to nature, whether as simple as walking in green spaces or as challenging as farming in the fields, improves both mental and physical health. Humans need time in nature to recharge. However, not everyone has the luxury of time and resources to tend to a farm...
Photo by Eleonora Albasi from Unsplash. French legislators, on January 21, 2021, passed a law to safeguard everyday aspects of rural life. This expansive law covers causal farm quirks like the sounds of cowbells and quacks of ducks, down to the smell of cow manure. The law recognizes such features...
BIÑAN CITY, Laguna – Where do campaign tarpaulins go now that the election is over and they have served their purpose? Here in Biñan City, they get a reincarnation – as seedling bags and breeding containers for fish. Tomato seedlings in seedling bags made of recycled campaign...
Photo by Eleonora Albasi from Unsplash. More countries have been recognizing the potential of bamboo in restoring damaged ecosystems. Among these countries is the Philippines which as part of the country’s enhanced National Greening Program, included bamboo planting as a tool to rehabilitate...
AVANT GARDENER Yvette Tan As the world continues to reopen two years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Philippines is looking forward to once again welcoming both foreign and domestic travelers to its shores. The Department of Tourism (DoT)’s 2022 goals of “Sustainable, resilient,...
A team from the Quirino State University (QSU) made a significant move to address the shrinking population and the continued threat to native trees by rapidly multiplying high-quality planting stocks of native tree species in the region. For. Benabise and his team in one of Quirino's native forest,...
Milkfish ( Chanos chanos ), locally known as bangus, is the most valuable farmed fish in the Philippines in terms of production volume, use, and geographic distribution. Except for the landlocked Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), bangus is cultivated in all regions of the country. Its...
Photo by Mike Petrucci from Unsplash. Who would have thought that growing plants in the soil of the moon was actually possible? Scientists from the University of Florida accomplished this by growing thale cress ( Arabidopsis thaliana ) on lunar soil collected by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin...
Freshly harvested ibuli fruits. (Jerome Sagcal) The tree of ibuli ( Cubilia cubili ) is now a protected tree in the town of Pakil, Laguna after the local government approved an ordinance declaring ibuli as the town’s flagship species for conservation. Local residents often call ibuli Pakil’s...
Agritourism sites are venues where anyone can learn agriculture, participate in farm activities, eat meals made with farm-fresh ingredients, and sometimes stay overnight for training or recreation. What is not known to many folks is the existence of bee tourism (aka apitourism and...
