Four tips for efficient organic farming

By BENJAMIN SARONDO

Angeli and Michael Bryan Pascual own Bukid Iluminada, an integrated farm located in Barangay Balubal, Sariaya, Quezon, where they naturally grow fruits and vegetables and raise livestock and poultry.

READ: Learning natural farming naturally: Couple in Quezon devotes time and passion to organic agriculture

Angeli and Michael Bryan Pascual shared four tips for effective organic farming:

Grow your own organic fertilizer

Ingredients that can be used for concoctions like FFJ, FPJ, OHN, and calphos, are harvested from the farm. Rejected produce can also be included in concoctions. Adequate fertilization makes the plants thrive in most conditions.

Give your rejected produce to your livestock to save on feed costs

When harvesting, not all our produce is marketable, aspire toward value addition for nonmarketable fruits and veggies. As organic practitioners, try to reuse the rejects for other farm inputs, such as feed for our native pigs, ingredients for organic concoctions, and compost.

Use grass and weed clippings as mulch

To prevent erosion, trap moisture, and help build soil, maximize green manure. It’s affordable and sustainable in the long run. Mulching also helps to improve soil moisture and prevent plants from drying out too quickly.

It is best to intercrop

Implementing intercropping helps accommodate more crops at once, so a farmer is not dependent on one crop per growing season. If prices are low or if something happens to one type of crop, a farmer has another option.

Photo by Bukid Iluminada/Michael Bryan Pascual

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