Agricultural Changes in the Rice Terraces of the Cordillera Region, Northern Philippines and their Impacts on Labor Dynamics and Food Security

Abstract

The study covered four rice terraces clusters in the Cordillera region, Northern Philippines located in Asipulo, Ifugao, Tanglagan, Apayao Province, Bagumbayan, Tabuk City, Kalinga and Natonin, Mt. Province. The study assessed the changes that has occurred in the rice terraces and their impacts on labor dynamics and food security. To obtain the necessary data, a timeline workshop was conducted for each site involving ten farmer key informant for each study site and validated by a separate group of ten farmers. The result showed that the rice terraces started mainly as a traditional type of farming system relying mainly on human labor using farming practices developed and handed down from older generations. The modern farming innovation adopted by farmers are: substitution of traditional rice varieties to high yielding rice varieties, use of commercial fertilizers and pesticides, farm mechanization with hand tractors, rice threshers and rice mills and improvement of irrigation canals. High yielding rice varieties increased yield of rice by 50% to 70% vis a vis the traditional varieties and enhanced the food security situation in the rice terraces. High yielding rice varieties created a fit between subsistence and cash wherein 50% of the harvest is sold to the market and 50% stored for home use. For the traditional rice varieties 80 to 90% of the harvest are stored for home consumption with only 10-20 % sold locally. At other times, only leftovers from previous harvest are the ones being sold locally. Farm mechanization on the other hand eliminated the tedious manual labor situation in the terraces freeing almost 60% of man-hours spent by farmers in manually tending the rice terraces. Improved irrigation designs courtesy of the national government helped increased rice yield in the terraces. In terms of information sources, farmers obtain much needed information on agriculture from four various sources namely: tradition andinheritance (for traditional rice varieties), extension agents from the Local Government Units, rice traders and businessmen and farmer to farmer contact.