MEMBERS of the Bagobo Tagabawa tribe in the 10 sitios in Sibulan, Toril in Davao City are working together for the development of their 350-hectare ancestral land plantation specializing in cacaos and coffees among other crops.
“We also plant other crops but for now, we target plantation for organic cacaos and coffee. We had our first batch of harvest of cacaos but we still continue planting. When we planted it, we made sure we did not use synthetics and for fertilizers, we only use those from our compost,” Datu Hernan Ambe, their tribal chieftain said in the vernacular.
Ambe said, in this agricultural project, they had been assisted by Foundation for Agrarian Reform Cooperatives in Mindanao Inc. (FarmCoop).
FarmCoop is a Davao-based non-government organization founded in 1995 that provides services to farmers’ cooperatives.
The organization had been assisting 21 cooperatives in Mindanao in a way to develop medium and small scale industries producing processed organic products from bananas, coconuts, cacao, and coffee to give value added to the farm products. Out of the 21 coops, included are the Sibulan Organic Banana Growers Multi-Purpose Coop (Sobagromco) and the Sibulan Ancestral Domain Organic Producer Cooperative (Sadopco).
According to Ambe, FarmCoop provided them trainings and seminars for organic banana, cacao, and coffee plantation and crop management, including also the proper way of making a compost pit for organic fertilizers. He shared inspectors regularly go around the farm to make sure that there are no synthetic materials used in farming.
Currently, their cacao plantation make up around 200 hectares while coffee is around 50 hectares.
“We haven’t sold our harvests yet. The cacaos that we previously harvested were processed in the nursery to grow more seedlings. But this year, we target to have our harvested cacaos per area sold. Our farmers were also already trained to make tableas,” he said adding around a hundred farmers were trained to make tableas and they look forward to this more value-adding products once they have started harvesting cacaos again.
For the remaining undeveloped areas of their ancestral land, Ambe said they will continue with what they have started with organic vegetables and other crops. Aside from cacaos and coffee, they also have bell peppers and bananas. Before, they used to have corns and abaca which they also plan to revive as target crops in the coming years.
“We target to plant more organic vegetables in the remaining land areas to help with our goal to have Sibulan as an organic zone in the future,” he said.
Currently, out of the tribal members from the 10 sitios cooperating together to improve their agricultural land, Ambe said there are around 200 individuals already working hand-in-hand for their community project.