BAGUIO CITY – Indigenous women leaders from Mindanao said the expansion of jatropha plantations in Sarangani and in other provinces in Mindanao has displaced traditional food crops, which forced members of the B’laan tribe to go hungry.
In a recent commemoration of the international day for the elimination of violence against women here, Lorna Mora, a B’laan leader, said 500 hectares of agricultural land in Sarangani were used to grow jatropha, locally known as tuba-tuba and a source of biofuel.
“We cannot eat three times a day like we used to [because only a few parcels of land have been left to till],” Mora said.
Women leaders from various tribes from Mindanao, the Visayas and Luzon attended a two-day documentation project on violence against indigenous women, which was organized by Innabuyog-Gabriela, Bai (national network of indigenous women’s organization in the Philippines) and Asia’s Indigenous Women’s Network (AIWN).
They said among crops displaced by jatropha farms are rice, corn, banana and root crops.
“The [establishment of] jatropha plantations may appeal as an immediate solution to [the] local energy [problem], but this initiative does not [consider] the social effects,” Mora said.
Officials of the Department of Agriculture said the agency has started drawing up guidelines for converting farms into jatropha plantations.
Pedro Jerry Baliang, DA Cordillera assistant director, said the government does not want to compromise food security.
“We do not want to sacrifice agricultural lands,” he said.
Baliang said the DA and the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources are concluding an agreement on identifying zones for jatropha.
He said they would ensure that jatropha would not encroach on rice and vegetable farmlands.
Robert Domoguen, DA Cordillera information officer, earlier said the production of jatropha threatens food production because farmers might shift to planting this if they find out that this is more lucrative.
Domoguen said the government could prevent this if it would limit areas where jatropha could be cultivated.
“Biofuel is a threat but we need it,” he said.
