Xavier Mindanao Making Microorganisms Man’s Allies In Agriculture, Not Adversaries

When I was a teenager, many years before I went to study at UP Los Baños in 1959, in our ricefield I used to drench the broadleaved weeds with 2,4-D until the leaves were dripping wet “to make sure they die!" I did not know the chemical would somehow find its way into other plants, including the rice my father was growing. Bad for those weeds, bad for the Hilarios.

That was about 1957. Today, 64 years later, Filipino farmers are still spraying chemicals referred to as pesticides: such as against weeds (weedicides) and against fungi (fungicides). Sooner, not later, this will change. I have high hopes for such, as I read the news item “DOST Awards P1M Grant To Xavier University For Microorganism Research” by Joahna Lei Casilao (29 October 2021, GMA News):

The Department of Science & Technology (DoST) Region 10 has awarded a P1 million grant to Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro City for its research project on the use of microbial cocktails as an alternative to pesticides.

Personally, I am glad for Xavier U because I know it as an excellent University – I taught for a year 1968-1969 at its College of Agriculture (XUCA) on Horticulture and injected organic principles in my lectures without informing beforehand XUCA Dean Fr William Masterson, SJ – later, he must have known but did not object in any manner. Indeed, the Jesuits must know what’s good for the soul – and the soil!

One of my XUCA students, Nicanor “Nicky” Perlas, improving on organic agriculture, won the Right Livelihood Award by practicing biodynamic agriculture.

Both organic and biodynamic agriculture work with compost, which is what the DoST-XUCA project will additionally work with: (1) microbial cocktails as an alternative to pesticides, and (2) microbial cocktails to degrade the organic materials into rich organic fertilizer.

The DoST-XUCA project calls for concocting (1) microbial pesticides as well as (2) what I shall refer to here as “compost on demand” – the research results will show how fast the microbial cocktails will degrade organic materials into compost that can be applied as fertilizer. The DoST says, “The formulated microbial cocktails will be studied for their characteristics as biodegradation-enhancers for compostable wastes.”

Now then, I’m thinking of those XUCA aggie researchers going beyond preparing microbial cocktails for composting of biodegradable matter – and apply the cocktails on the field itself to create an instant microbe-induced organic mulch all over the field!

That step I am adding to what I previously described as “Lazy Juan Farming” (see my 28 October 2021 essay, “Fertilizer Subsidy For PH Agriculture Considered. How About Lazy Juan Farming? No Joke!” Communication For Development, Blogspot.com). To render Lazy Juan Farming more powerful without much additional human labor, after the shallow rotavation as I describe it, spray the microbial cocktails on the whole field – and that will hasten the degradation of the surface mulch into organic fertilizer.

How about it, XUCA researchers? Apply your microbes on my Lazy Juan mulch, and your P1 million research grant will give farmers in return a hundredfold!@517