Philippines: Ilocano Farmers Asked to Plant Alternative Cash Crop to Virginia Tobaccos

Source from:  Philippine News Agency 10/08/2012

MANILA - Deep in the Virginia tobacco farms of northern Philippines, Leonardo Bernardo sits pensively beside his earthen flue-curing barn, only weeks away from the last harvest of the top leaves of his crop of Virginia tobaccos. As the monsoon began to bring in nimbus, in time for the planting of rice in his rice land in Pinili in far northwest Ilocos Norte, he wonders whether the flue-curing barn will still have any use in the future.

Pinili, sandwiched by the normally placid Luzon Bay on the west and the imposing Ilocos mountain ranges due east, has been chosen as the garlic center for the province of Ilocos Norte under the government’s One Town One Product program. Other towns have been given their respective assigned products, which interestingly does not include tobacco, the cash crop of the region since American business tycoon Harry Stonehill introduced Virginia tobacco to the area in the 1950s. Many Ilocano farmers were able to send their offspring to the better colleges and universities in the metropolis – many thanks to the family income from Virginia tobaccos. Leonardo Bernardos’s story might well be the story of many Ilocano farmers, particularly those who have used the ordinary steel plows despite the inroads of technology in the generally loamy soil of the Ilocos provinces. Many of today’s generation of professionals from the northwest of the country earned their bachelor’s degree through the income from Virginia tobacco leaves. Leonardo Bernardo owns only a few hectares of land planted with either rice or tobacco. Now he has been asked to risk his livelihood and experiment with a crop that could spell more money. There is also a suggestion from the Bureau of Plant Industry to try cotton, which has been achieved in the country in recent years and might be worthwhile to plant it instead of tobacco. Observers say this would revolutionize agricultural pattern of the Ilocos provinces, familiar with the aroma of Virginia tobaccos flue-cured in scorching summer. Sitting beside his barn, Leonardo Bernardo must now be convinced that cotton planting and even garlic planting would yield for him and his family higher profits, apart from maintaining the good health of members of his family by isolating them from the harmful effects of tobacco. Along with a dozen other provinces throughout this Southeast Asian archipelago, the Ilocos provinces – Pangasinan, La Union, Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte – have been identified as ideal for cotton planting after extensive testing of their soil. Nearly 300,000 hectares could be used, according to officials – more than enough to turn the Philippines from a cotton importer to an exporter. In recent past the government-owned Philippine Cotton Corp. embarked on an ambitious cotton-growing program aimed at self-sufficiency in cotton production. The long-range goal was to produce all of Southeast Asia’s raw cotton demands. Officials said in one harvest in the past, plant industry authorities said they harvested 2.5 tons of cotton per hectare in their pilot farms in the Ilocos. But even as Leonardo Bernardo sits beside his barn, wondering about the future, cotton proponents may have to go through a major hump in politicians who see tobaccos as a source of livelihood for many of their constituents. He knows, given the unpredictable surges of the local market, that even cotton would perhaps bring in some problems. Enditem