“I have been doing farming for the past 10 years mainly planting pepper, coffee, areca nut, and some coconut trees in a little farm I own. And in another land I took on lease, I grow banana and tapioca. I grow my pepper plants in areca nut trees to make efficient use of the little land I own. Currently, I am also doing marigold farming mainly to be used as pest repellant.

Climate change poses the biggest obstacle to farming as seen in the last few years where, on the one hand, it brings more rains than usual creating fungus problems in plants. Conversely, there is less and less summer rains during April and May causing problems to pepper plants. To cope with this, farmers like us resort to organic mulching, where we use plant and tree waste either available in the surrounding or bought from outside to cover the soil surface and keep moisture. (i.e. we use plant/tree wastes available in the field or bought from outside as cover for the plants). I do this just before the rains end.

Continuous heavy rains bring floods like last year and this year (2018, 2019) where non-stop downpour happened for days on end. Top soil gets washed away, bringing with it lime, organic manure and other nutrients. To prevent this, we built top soil fence like stone fence around the farm but it doesn’t seem sufficient. With soil nutrient lost, we see problems in Areca trees, pepper start falling off the plants and coffee beans drop to the ground.

Thanal Trust gives us classes related to organic farming where I learn ~ several things like preparation and use of fish-amino acid, and very useful information about organic pest repellants, among others. I learned that Marigold is a very helpful pest repellant whereas before, we just plant it as a flower. Farmers also used to destroy spider webs as soon as they see it, fearing poisonous bites or avoiding its stickiness. Now, when we see it we try to protect it because we know that it is effective in controlling pests.

The Mobile Organic Clinic initiated by Thanal has visited my farm and conducted soil tests. They also gave me advice on how to improve soil quality of my land.”

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Paily is one of the success stories featured in “The Enduring Narratives of Agroecology” by IPAM & PANAP.