Open Source Seeds

Vandana Shiva discusses savings seeds, sharing knowledge, and open source software. (Via Bifurcated Carrots.)

I've been having a lot of discussions regarding seeds and seed saving recently, with people who are "not the type. This is quite fascinating when you consider how unpopular the topic of seeds was just a couple of years ago.

Underutilized Plants

I dream of a food revolution in this country. Of new tastes, old wisdom, practicality, and appropriateness to place.

I was previously growing less than half of the vegetables I eat (and I am vegetarian, so that means, all my food aside from rice), but since the discovery of edible weeds (kulitis, above, is one), it has gone up so drastically that I am smiling like a fool all the time. We don't really know what we've got, and we're so used to eating what the groceries (even wet markets) shove us, that we ignore what sprouts effortlessly from the ground.

I'm in a bit of constant study now (explaining less posts) of these wild plants, and learning something new everyday. Old books, interviews, historical text, listening for "Kinakain ito sa amin." ("Where I am from, we eat this.").

I am convinced this will help us, a country of colonization, Americanization, appropriation of dictated-by-other romanticized cultural associations, sweeping and empty "Pinoy ako" declarations, have an identity borne of our own land. How many of us actually know our own land? How can we know about the culture it informed-- and create a unique culture informed by it-- if we don't have the faintest clue what springs from it?

What "invasives" are naturalized and why? What do they like about our country and what can we learn from their adaptation? I have interest in this because ethnically, I carry the bloodlines of naturalized "invasives"-- a constant occurrence in nature.

I don't always get to type it out, but that is what interests me these days. Garden on.

Urban Farming in Parañaque, Part II

Pauli was just a lot away from Romy. We joined him as he sat under the shade of a large aratiles tree.

How great it would have been at this point be to take a dip in a cool pond-- one that would have been filled up by the many little rivers and streams that existed before Parañaque was cemented over. Or maybe I should have tried Pauli's catchment hole, which was already filled with the same sewage water that Romy used. Even sitting on a patch that may have been soaked by it made me anxious.



He was growing only two things. One, kinchay or Chinese celery, is used in many local dishes, including the ubiquitous party pancit. The other was lettuce, of some variety or another (friends will tell you I am not so fond of this salad leaf family).



I was able to buy a kilo each of kinchay and lettuce for only Php45 (less than one dollar). He claims that the lettuce was not yet fertilized. Anyhow, I'll post later on about how I transplanted some of the produce into small pots and tried to wean them off chemicals. And oh, I actually ate some of the stuff I bought, after washing them well. I reasoned out that I have probably been eating dirtier stuff all this time anyway. It was also my silent way of support and solidarity. Hehe.



Anyhow, Pauli is a migrant from Catanduanes, Bicol. An uncle had moved to Manila to escape the stormy ravages of home, and after a failed attempt to get a job, ended up tending a lot in the subdivision I was sitting in now. Pauli was encouraged to come during the 80s, and has since become a squatter near the village church. He grows a variety of crops throughout the year, selling them to the same wholesalers and retailers who frequent these urban farms.

He (almost tearfully) told me about how the homeowners' association has given him until April 20 to leave the place, despite his amicable arrangement with the lot owner. Apparently, the association attributed recent cases of theft to the farmers, without evidence or arrest. This is silly-- the gates are so loosely guarded (with one fronting a busy passage to Ninoy Aquino Avenue), and many other non-residents such as construction workers shuffle in and out.

Now without any alternative livelihood, he was trying to look for another patch to cultivate. With sadness, he recounted how it was here that he had grown into manhood and started his family. His presence, and those of other farmers, is not legitimized by the local government.

The demand for fresh food exists everywhere, but the supply chain is convoluted and messed up. Instead of eliminating these farmers, who represent probably the last remaining agricultural forces of Metro Manila, let's look for ways to incorporate them.

There is room to get creative here: Teach the use of natural stormwater collecting (and supplementary water supply) to eliminate the use of sewage? Start a co-op to provide (organic) farm subscriptions to the community and other surrounding subdivisions? This will eliminate the middlemen and give them a sense of dignity and stability.



Before I left, Pauli and I had a flute exchange. I gave him the cheapo flute from India that I had been playing while walking around, and he gave me a flute he had fashioned of a scrap piece of bamboo from a nearby construction (it was loads better and more sophisticated). He said he used to make his own flutes to keep him amused during rest periods on the Catanduanes bukid. I can't play the thing because I can't do the mouth shape right, but I won't stop trying. And I'll keep it as a reminder of the nearby everyday struggles and services by "under-the-radar" folks like Pauli.

Urban Farming in Parañaque

This post is a little bit serious and not directly related to my own garden.



It sings of the general benefits of poking around! On a recent walk in a subdivision nearby, I entered the world of the migrant urban farmers who survive on selling produce grown on other people's land.

I had visited several urban farms run by community organizations before, as well as those little empty-lot gardens maintained by the helpers of wealthier families in the metro. But I'd never seen people actually enter gated communities-- this particular one had the strange condition of having both large mansions and poor security-- and set up crop on unused parcels of land.

Romy has been in Manila for 20 years now. Once a squatter, he is now part of the nearby Gawad Kalinga community. I chanced upon him as he was getting ready to fill his large catchment hole up with water.



Apparently, he uses an gasoline-powered pump to course water from the street's sewer into the hole, now overgrown with vines after months of non-use. He then dips a pair of large watering cans in, and hooks them onto a wooden rod, which he balances on his shoulders. There is a technique in tipping the heavy steel buckets at the right angle to dispense a proper amount of moisture while walking in between rows. He showed me his various tools, and instructed me on which rakes to use during different kinds of weather.



Nearby was a collapsed and neglected trellis with alugbati and ampalaya thriving despite the heat. Obviously, this was for family consumption. Beside that was a large cleared area, where Romy was preparing to plant a new crop of pechay and lettuce. He uses NPK fertilizer and urea, claiming that the plants will not grow on this poor soil without them. His produce is usually sold to buyers from Divisoria, where many individuals and establishments buy their veggies.



On top of the giving you the freaky feeling of knowing that some of your food is probably "nourished" with untreated sewage (E. coli, bleach, motor oil, etc.), it makes you think about the exodus of farmers from their native provinces. Poor soil conditions, lack of transport to market, high input prices drive farmers to city centers. Often they stumble upon a general lack of opportunity and end up being squatters.

Migrants to large cities (especially older men and women) bring with them valuable knowledge about farming systems and climate, often leaving a vacuum in traditional technique transmission back home. (I myself have gained much valuable information from our past household helpers, who have come to Manila from their farming life in the province.) The settlers also face new challenges in the city: they must learn to improvise when faced with a new set of variables, water sources included.

While many may will find Romy's practices completely appalling, some may choose to take it as an indicator of how skewed the Philippine farming situation is in terms of poverty, migration, food security, and food safety. Needless to say, I came home to tend my garden with much more vigor after this stroll. Next I'll write about Pauli, another farmer I met that day.