Davao City—The 113th batch of farmers who attended the Kabalikat sa Kabuhayan Training Program on Sustainable Agriculture completed their training in Davao City.
Launched in June 2016, the 108 graduates cultivated a demonstration farm which is an Obo-Manobo Tribe area in Sitio Ladi-an, Barangay Marilog, Davao City. The demo farm is a protected indigenous people’s land, where the University of the Philippines-Mindanao is conducting their environment and social development projects.
The season-long training required the participants to attend every Tuesday the lectures conducted at Datu Luis Lambak’s house. Datu Lambak is the Obo-Manobo tribe leader.
Lessons learned from the training will benefit a large community of Obo-Manobo tribe in the barangay many of whom are also beneficiaries of DSWD’s 4Ps. Some of the participants are not able to read and write, and they related how special it was for them to experience being able to come up the stage and receive a graduation certificate. Some of them even related that because of the distance of Barangay Marilog to the city proper of Davao, it was only during their graduation ceremony that they were able to go to SM for the first time.
The farmers cultivated different varieties of: ampalaya, talong, upo, patola, kalabasa, sili, pipino, tomatoes, labanos, lettuce, melon, watermelons and highland crops that included bell peppers. They were also taught drip irrigation and the use of a green house.
In a testimonial from Datu Luis Lambak, he said that their tribe has been traditional farmers for a very long time that they are already confident with their craft. However, changes in the weather during these past few years (extreme heat or extreme cold) made it harder for them to sustain their crops. As a result, some of the able-bodied men go to the nearby barangays or to the city proper in order to seek for other jobs. Often, they were employed as construction workers and other labor-intensive work. Learning modern organic agricultural technology opened an opportunity for the people to become farmers again. Datu Lambak said that he is thankful for the project because this would be of great help to improve the lives of the Obo-Manobo tribe community.