MikeLigalig.com

Rey Anthony Chiu

Bohol – What is common among ube and its weird rituals, organic lubang rice farming, humay tapow, humay puwa, hungos, sustainable agriculture and the Sierra Bullones and Duero Rice Terraces?
 
They will soon be part of a rich agricultural heritage tour which Bohol could offer after these generated an unusual interest among tourists and environment advocates, according to non-government organization authorities here who have seen the potential for a niche tourism market for this.
 
NO TO GMO
Distinguishing itself among very few provinces which have churned out an official stand against genetically modified organism (GMO), Bohol looms as among the leaders.
 
Keeping Bohol environment unadulterated by “tinkered” food is a sublime responsibility of a people which looks forward to a healthy and safe future generation, admits former vice governor Julius Ceasar Herrera during the historic passing of the band on GMO ordinance.
 
With a sturdy group of sustainable agriculture advocates and armed with Bohol Initiators for Sustainable Agricultural Development (BISAD) master plan, tourists looking at replicating Bohol can pore at its legislation and pluck salient points they can possibly replicate, Herrera said.
 
UBI
Food given by the gods to feed a drought stricken people, the ube is so revered crop here that there are weird tales about how farmers go insane lengths to make the rootcrop grow lush and retain its sweet aroma.
 
Regarded as among the most important crops in Bohol, ubi kinampay and baligonhon (aromatic purple yam) are prized plants by locals who have sworn the crops trace back to a long line of generations in their family.
 
Early Spanish priest and chronicler Fr. Ignacio Alcina SJ has noted the crop upon the arrival of the Spanish missionaries here, and modern farmers believed the product could have been brought with the galleons to Acapulco where it would be later brought to Spain.
 
Ubi should not be dropped, people here believe. When a child carrying it trips, there is a huge chance that the child gets a spanking, while the ubi gets a kiss.
 
Modern farmers say, a dropped ubi develops bruises which rots the crop while in storage. This makes it not viable for travel to Spain, which also infuriates the traders who lose potential profits from this, they explain.
 
Tales abound here saying that the crop should be planted on moonless nights by bare women who are “well endowed,” this assures that the rootcrops grow as large as fat breasts and crack like “it is, down there.”
 
Before that, a male farmer would do the palihi, a ceremonial planting when he puts in a triad of holes prepared broken pots, sea shells, olive palm leaves as parts of the ritual which also includes paganist thanksgiving and supplication.
 
HUMAY LUBANG/HUMAY PILIT TAPOW
Another interest for tourists and environmentalists, including sustainable agriculture farmers is the traditional organic rice and the black glutinous rice.
 
Still a hit among Boholanos for it deals a different fill to those who consume them, the tapow varieties have remained unchanged and are grown on organic ricefields.
 
Bombarded already by a slew of commercial and mixed breeds of rice, lubang and tapow have survived the onslaught keeping their distinct characteristics and their low susceptibility to climatic changes, Dr. Marina Labonite of BISU research center shared.
 
These are varieties that have been proven to survive the heat, knowing them as traditionally bred upland rice varieties, a traditional organic farmer from Cansumbol Bilar confessed.
 
These too are best cooked when husked using the traditional wooden mortar and pestle.
 
Husking the lubang and tapow always evokes that painting of the a rice field bathed in golden light and the rustic feel, which a tourist would certainly remember for long, he said
 
He was referring to a Filipino painter Amorsolo.
 
GENE BANK
One of the potentially great contributions Bohol farmers can share to the country is its rare stock of rice accessions, shares Dr. Marina Labonite of the Bohol Island State University
 
The accessions are local breeds of rice from those varieties which were introduced for their noted high yielding characteristics, which farmers have interbred to test their survivability in the drastic changes of climate brought about by global warming.
 
Conceived to find the most cost efficient rice breed that could translate to profits, the project to seek out the traditional varieties and bank them became a hit as newer breeds demand so much inputs that often go to eat up the farmer’s profits.
 
Now stockpiled at a room in the sprawling BISU compound, the rice seeds are in both panicle and threshed form while some other 200 accessions are also in cold storage on refrigerators in the room.
 
The objective is to make sure that any farmer can get seeds for test planting and the produce, he can use for his production in the next cropping season, she explains.
 
From here, farmers can also get a choice of other accessions to vary the rice varieties in their farms for cropping, this breaks their susceptibility to pests and other diseases, she adds.
 
What is more stunning is that farmers here in Bilar have been planting their bred rice accessions without the use of inorganic fertilizers, which makes their harvests really organic.
 
But the accreditation and the authority to let them use the term rests in scientists who study rice breeding, she summed.
 
RICE TERRACES
Unknown to many, the urge to adapt to the environment in Bohol happened long before campaigns for climate change adaptation became vogue.
 
In Sierra Bullones for example, farmers from at least five barangays continue to till rice from age-old rice terraces, carved from sloping hills which were otherwise inhospitable to rice.
 
Now with the rice paddies carved and built on the hill slopes, the spectacle of green rice neatly arranged and sprouting from rice terraces could not just be claimed by provinces way up north.
 
These rice terraces have been here even before my grandfather who farmed some of them, admits a farmer in Malinao, Sierra Bullones.
 
There is this heartening contrast of carved hills and an unadulterated forest rising in the distance, one can note while standing on a highway cutting across the hectares of rice terraces.

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