Davao del Sur farmers return to chemicals

Farmers here find organic farming so tasking that even those who briefly tried it have since returned to conventional rice production.

The municipal agriculture office confirmed that the number of farmers adopting organic farming methods have declined in recent years.

For example, the agriculture office said that in 2004, out of the 3,000 hectares devoted to rice farming here, 104 hectares were planted using organic methods.

But last year, the area devoted to organic farming decreased by at least 10 percent because farmers decided to return to what they have been used to—the heavy use of chemicals to increase production.

One of them was Avelina Laganse, who owns a sizeable area of rice farm here.

Laganse said she decided to revert to the chemical farming method because her adoption of the organic method had drastically increased her production cost.

"For example, under organic farming methods, we pick rice snails one by one when they invade the farms. Because combating snail infestation is a race against time, we have to make sure that we pick them up as fast as we could. This is where additional cost comes in because we have to hire more people to do that," Laganse said.

While combating snail infestation using the organic system is labor intensive, Laganse said only one or two persons are needed if they are controlled through chemicals.

"We only have to spray the chemicals and they die," she said.