WHAT THE HECTARE!

In a passing conversation in Masbate, years back, I was told that a head of cattle-- fetched a live-weight price of P30,000 then-- is allocated a hectare of pasture to graze on as that area replenishes its growth of grass every 40 days or so. Minimum hectarage that Masbate cattle raisers have is 100 hectares for raising beef livestock.

 

The numbers had the weight of a rock conked on my head-- a hectare per cattle each worth P30K, chewing cud for 18 hours a day to gain semblance of weight. The pastures I've been taken to a hundred or so kilometers beyond Masbate city limits were a howling expanse of cogon. Cogon, whose blades are nearly entirely cellulose, or that which goes into cellophane wrappers for candies and cigarettes, or cellulose tape.

 

Cogon, infused in the proverbial "ningas-cogon" attitude of Filipinos for starting every endeavor like a house on fire, then, dying quickly into ashes.

 

So, I wondered aloud why it hasn't occurred to the provincial agriculturist-- oh, dear, government service is indeed a bastion of incompetents-- to propagate and introduce better forage materials like juicier vetiver and paragrass that are quite excellent for soil erosion control; fast-growing and very efficient ground cover vines like tapilan, or kudzu, or the usual ipil-ipil and katuray whose foliage are excellent feeds for hogs, fowls, and cattle.

 

Days later, I was told that the provincial agriculturist had been tipped of my suggestions-- and I could only keep my fingers crossed that such had been carried out.

 

A hectare, all 10,000 square meters of ground, is derived from the Latinized form of a Greek term, hekaton "a hundred" + Latin area "vacant piece of ground"-- which explains why I am aghast at why so much ground space can go idle. All it takes for the ground to laugh in foliage, flowers, and fruits is to tickle it with a plow's coulter, a hoe, a trowel, even a bolo.

 

Made to face, in another time and place, what can be done to a spread of 150 hectares of rolling hilly terrain in the interior parts of Cavite, I suggested that at least 10 hectares be planted to cassava or manioc. Problem is the procurement of enough cassava planting materials, and paying for wages of farm-hands who would be tapped for the job, and the warning that came that once we touch even a hectare of that spread, my partner's mom told us that she'll be leaving to us the responsibility of paying for real estate taxes-- a cool P2M a year.

 

I was expressly against using that spread as collateral for a bank loan-- most folks hock their few parcels of hectarage, plunge into a crop production venture that by some vagaries of weather, say, super typhoons or invasion of insect pests and plant maladies that they find themselves with only the shirts on their backs, the panties on their crotches, and imminent foreclosure. Catastrophe.

 

What I opt for is a patient marshaling of resources, and doing hands-on engagement with the land and its unseen denizens and guardian spirits. So much wisdom in the sayings, little strokes fell great oaks, little licks can sink a great hip.

Too, I'm not really keen on manioc-- chips go into making of animal feeds, succulent tubers yield alcohol that go into manufacture of my favorite Marka Demonyo. 

 

Cassava is a voracious feeder of soil fertility and must be irrigated to increase tuber yields by as much as 80 percent. So, balinghoy deserves to be grown for 2-3 cropping seasons before giving way for the more benign crops that can provide soil fertility.

 

I'm all for permaculture, that is, permanent agriculture, say a mixed orchard of mango, and ilang-ilang trees with generous spreads of cacao and coffee-- they command premium prices in global markets, and yeah, quite gentle to the environment. And once the trees are fully established, all they require is minimum care and manuring.