Engagement in crop production practices before and during COVID-19 pandemic: Resiliency of Polanco farmers
Paper Details
Engagement in crop production practices before and during COVID-19 pandemic: Resiliency of Polanco farmers
Abstract
We assessed the production practices, problems, and satisfaction of farmers in Polanco, Zamboanga del Norte before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey was used with a structured questionnaire and semi-interview to come up with the frequency distribution and narrative analysis. Most of the respondents are female (54%) with more than 10 years in farming and performed usual activities on the farm with most of them planting vegetables (80%) 3 times per year. However, changes occurred during the pandemic. The usual cultivation of soil was minimized and the farmers’ engagement in irrigation from the NIA decreased by 35% during the pandemic, this led to some of them constructing irrigation from rivers (14%). Most of the farmers practiced manual weeding (84%) before the pandemic and further increased (95%) during the pandemic; few were engaged in using herbicides with 26% before the pandemic, however, decreased to 5% during the pandemic. All farmers applied inorganic fertilizers before the pandemic, however, 50% of them switched to organic fertilizers during the pandemic. There were 20% who practiced both cultural and physical methods in controlling pests which is higher than for the biological method (10%), but lower than for the chemical method (50%) before the pandemic; however, the chemical method was decreased to 20% during the pandemic resulting in the majority of farmers switching to cultural (30%), and physical (30%) methods. The biological method was also practiced by some of the farmers by up to 20% increasingly during the pandemic. There were 72% of farmers practiced manual harvesting and the rest used mechanical harvesters (28%) before the pandemic, manual harvesting was further increased to 95% during the pandemic. Both before and during the pandemic, most of the farmers practiced sun-drying and ambient storage (30%), while there were 20% and 10% for cold storage and packaging, respectively. The most common problems were financial aspects, high labor costs, damage to crops due to weather, low prices, high transportation costs, and no control over the price which further encountered as very important problems during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, 77% of the farmers perceived that they were satisfied with receiving support and services from the LGU in terms of agricultural inputs, insurance, and the like, however, there were 15% who were not satisfied, and 8% who have not received any support. During the pandemic, the satisfaction of the farmers with government support increased to 92% because they received more certified seeds and cash for fertilizer based on their farm area size, however, there was still moderately satisfied with 3% of those farmers because they received certified seeds only and 5% were not receiving any service from the government. The farmers’ income decreased during the pandemic, but somehow still gained and showed their resiliency amid the calamity.
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Mary Grace P. Pizon, Enrique E. Biñas Jr (2024), Engagement in crop production practices before and during COVID-19 pandemic: Resiliency of Polanco farmers; JBES, V25, N2, August, P126-135
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