Fertilizer Subsidy For PH Agriculture Considered. How About Lazy Juan Farming? No Joke!

Why do millions of farmers remain poor in the Philippines as well as in the rest of Asia and Africa? Good question!

So, I Agriculturist (BSA major in Ag Edu, UP ’65) understand why the news by Jasper Y Arcalas, 25 October 2021, “DA Readies Short-, Long-Term Ways To Cut Fertilizer Prices[1]” (BusinessMirror):

The Department of Agriculture (DA)… is exploring various measures to help farmers cope with the rising prices of fertilizer(s), including a wider subsidy program as an immediate relief. It is also looking to promote organic fertilizer as a long-term solution.

That’s 2 solutions seen. Short-term – subsidize inorganic fertilizers. Long-term – substitute with organic fertilizers.

In the virtual press briefing, Agriculture Undersecretary Leocadio S Sebastian says, “We have to address the high costs of fertilizers in a holistic way.” So the DA is thinking fertilizer subsidy as well as “doing something to make farmers more efficient in using fertilizer.”

Logical. But I can think of something else, the name of which sounds illogical: Juan Tamad Farming. Lazy Juan Farming. Because this farmer’s son knows PH farmers are difficult to teach! Taking the path of least resistance, they simply throw fertilizers at crops. Each one is Juan Tamad if you ask me.
(“Juan Tamad” image[2] from Deviant Art, “subsidy” image[3] from Toppr)

Mr Sebastian says the DA will train farmers on fertilizer management via its agency, Bureau of Soils & Water Management (BSWM). The BSWM will intensively promote “balanced fertilization” with organic and inorganic fertilizers.

The DA is also looking into reducing costs of farming such as by direct seeding instead of transplanting, reducing labor cost by P6,000/ha. Wow!

Nonetheless, farmers have a much cheaper choice: Trash farming, which I refer to as Juan Tamad farming. Lazy Juan farming.

I discovered mid-1960s American gentleman farmer Edward H Faulkner’s 2 books, Plowman’s Folly (published 1943) and Soil Development (1952), at the UP College of Agriculture (now UP Los Baños) library, and so I have been proselytizing about Faulkner’s trash farming. Tamad farming is my modified trash farming by my introducing the rotavator, which does everything the farmer needs to do to enrich his field naturally:

With your green manure crop, crop refuse and/or weeds, pass the rotavator over the field, blades cutting down to only 2-3 inches into soil surface. Thus, the rotavator will cut plant materials simultaneously with the soil into fine pieces, rather than chunks as with a disc plow, and mix soil and plant chops at the same time. Repeating the process all over your field, what results is a complete layer of soil-plant mulch that begins to decay right away!

So, I just presented you a cropping method that does not need any inorganic or organic fertilizer applied – but in fact, that tamad mulch all over your field after rotavation is actually organic matter already applied evenly on the surface of the soil that will fertilize your crops from planting to harvesting. That is lazy man’s farming.

Tamad farming is 0% human fertilizing and 100% nature enriching!@517

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[1]https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/10/25/da-readies-short-long-term-ways-to-cut-fertilizer-prices/?fbclid=IwAR0kBt8jXdbAmZK4NU3n29qhYBdwEn4-3T1A63GknFAsx1tP1G3VEtslLIM

[2]https://www.deviantart.com/jele67/art/Juan-Tamad-131369385

[3]https://www.toppr.com/guides/economics/indian-economy-1950-1990/subsidies/