In lahar country, agri discovery makes impact
BACOLOR, Pampanga—Tsuyoshi Morita is such a quiet man that his projects with sugar and vegetable farmers in areas buried by Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption in Pampanga province in 1991 had drawn little attention.
The recent product of Morita, an agriculturist, has begun to be noticed by local organic food growers. Called compost activator (CA), it has been registered with the Philippine Patent Authority on March 12 under Morita’s name.
On Dec. 10, his company, Golden Opportunities Diversified Farms Inc. (Godfi), and Talete king Panyulung Kapampangan Foundation Inc. (TPKI) launched their partnership to popularize the use of CA among 100,000 farmers in Pampanga to help them revive lahar-buried farmlands.
The project started in Bacolor town, which once served as the capital of Pampanga and the Philippines and was considered the disaster’s ground zero.
The project’s farm school is a 2.5-hectare land beside Gugu River in Barangay (village) Cabalantian, which in 1991 was submerged under 9 meters of lahar.
Former Pampanga Gov. Eddie Panlilio inherited the land from his uncle, Francisco Panlilio, and lent it in 2013 to TPKI, which he founded 28 years ago and which he now heads as president.
It has successfully replicated Grameen Bank where groups of women get loans that they pay for enterprises that feed their families.
TPKI calls the place Eden Farm, which has been growing vegetables, fruits and livestock since last year for people who are healing themselves or are maintaining healthy lifestyles.
At the launch, Morita spent the whole day showing Kapampangan farmers and Japanese students how to use the CA to speed up the making of soil conditioner, liquid fertilizer from food waste, growth hormone, fungicide, insecticide, seed disinfectant, as well as for growing worms and enriching animal manure as fertilizers.
Emmanuel Alfonso, Eden Farm manager, said one planting season using CA produced Chinese pechay, Japanese cucumber, tomatoes, pepper, patola, upo and upland kangkong.
“Before, 80 percent of the plants died due to fungus. We managed to bring this down to
5 percent,” Alfonso told farmers.
Hiroto Aihara, an agroforestry specialist, said Morita’s CA produces safe organic fertilizers.
The CA sells for P30 a liter or 15 times lower than the cost of liquid fertilizers in 750-milliliter packs or bottles.
Panlilio said TPKI and Godfi were dividing the sales of CA in Eden Farm at a 60-40 percent sharing to sustain the project and expand the community of organic farmers in the province.
Morita, 57, called “Teddy” by his Kapampangan friends, has been in Pampanga since April 1991. From working in a sugar trading firm back then, he had helped Japan International Cooperation Agency and Ajinomoto assist sugar farmers.
