TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines—Many Filipino farmers will soon be producing their own fertilizer for application on their farms as the government is providing selected farming communities nationwide with composting facilities.

Mercedes Fernando, senior agriculturist of the Bureau of Soils and Water Management, said the government plans to distribute nationwide as grant to farmers a total of 2,600 composting kits.

Fernando, who is the national focal person of the organic fertilizer production project of the Department of Agriculture, said they were almost through with the distribution of 1,380 kits representing the first batch of the distribution.

She said P500 million has been allocated to the organic fertilizer production project this year.

The community-based composting facility is composed of a shredder, compost brewer, 15 kilos of African Night Crawler compost worms, and three units of vermi-bed.

The composting facility can produce 800 kilos of shredded materials per hour or 64,000 kilos per day at eight hours of operation, which would make it appropriate for a 100-hectare-cluster.

Each program package, composed of the compost facility as well as training of farmers, among others, costs around P350,000.

Fernando said the P500-million organic fertilizer production project fund would also finance the upgrading of existing trichoderma laboratories in the country. Trichoderma, she said, produce fungi that hasten the rotting of rice straw and other biodegradable wastes and that this is used in the production of fertilizer.

Also included is the upgrading of existing non-operational Bio-N mixing plants in the country, she added.

Fernando said they already requested for funds for the remaining 1,220 composting kits, costing P427 million, which they hope to distribute next year.

With the community-based composting facility in place, they foresee farmers to be using about 50 percent less chemical fertilizer and still have high yields, said Fernando, in an interview here on Friday while 53 kits were being distributed to beneficiaries in Eastern Visayas.

Project beneficiaries have to come from areas where the average farm yield is below the national average of 3.8 metric tons per hectare.

Of these initial 53 units, 25 went to beneficiaries in Leyte, eight to Biliran, five to Southern Leyte and the remaining 15 to the three Samar provinces.

Around 70 more composting facilities are to be distributed in the region, hopefully by next year, said Armando Arcamo, regional coordinator of the Bureau of Soils and Water Management.