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Blog by Florence Daguitan

Up to the 1980’s, food production of the Payew people has been sufficient and diverse. They even exported some of their surplus banana and rice. Their food comes mainly from their cultivated farms: the baangan and payew. Baangan are located within the residential lots including those surrounding the houses. Traditionally, the house is surrounded by crops such as herbs, fruit trees, rootcrops, leafy vegetables, and medicinal plants. One to three pigpens can be found as well as houses for chickens and other poultry like ducks.  Also called baangan are the farms planted mainly for sweet potatoes intercropped with legumes, squash, corn, and vegetables like pechay, beans, and potatoes.

Payew are the irrigated rice farms planted with about traditional rice varieties and taro, beans, peas, leafy vegetables, and sweet potatoes. The payew also serves as habitat for other aquatic, semi aquatic and non-aquatic flora and fauna like insects, crabs, and frogs.

Um-a is rotational, no-till farming aided by fire for planting diverse food crops. For the um-a, either they let nature restore as part of the forest or let the land rest and be cultivated again after soil fertility is restored.

Supplementary food such as mushroom, wild berries, wild fruits and vegetables are  gathered from the forests: in the batangan (pine forests)  and in the pagpag (broad leafed forests). In the ginawang (rivers), there are three species of fish and crabs. 

Soil fertility maintenance is done through green manure or organic fertilization called lubok in the baangan and suwat in the payew. The naturally grown vegetation surrounding the farms are cut and incorporated into the soil to feed and nurture it. Composting is also practiced. About half of the pig pen is devoted as toilet of the pig where all biodegradable waste are deposited and every now and then vegetations that surround the house and wild sunflowers are intentionally cut to be added. Every year, this compost pit is emptied into the baangan and the payew.

Embedded in the Payew people’s traditional food system are the values and practices of sharing knowledge, seeds, and harvests; caring for the soil, farms, forests, and rivers guided by the principle of inayan and lawa or “do no harm”; helping one another in the form of ubbo (labor exchange) and extending aid to victims of disasters; and collective work for the common good, such as maintaining pathways and irrigation.

Rice farming also sustains indigenous spirituality by reminding people that we live with the unseen spirits of nature and that we must respect their habitats which are all over the territory. For every stage of life of the riceplant, elders pray for the health and well being of all creatures within the territory.

To date, these practices continue to be eroded due to the promotion and eventual adoption of techno pack monocropping, synthetic fertilizers, and petro-chemical pesticides. They now import all kinds of foods, animal feeds, and agro-chemicals.

“There was a time when what we grow is what we consumed. We know very well what we have put into our crops.  Whereas if we depend on the market for our food, we do not know what was put in the food that we buy. It is a reality today that numerous illnesses have emerged that are not known to us. We should strive to promote farming as a noble profession. We should refrain from saying that we don’t get anything from farming as this is a false statement. There is always something from farming. If we take care of the land, it will give back.” – Manang Pancy, Payew farmer

Members of the Payeo Indigenous Farmers Organization (PIFO) resolved to revive their indigenous food production system. The first step they took is to campaign for the strengthening of soil fertility through suwat and lubok, and to innovate in the production of biofertilizers to feed the living soil and restore its fertility. They are planning to ban pesticides in their territory through a barangay resolution, and to continue capacitating the community on indigenous knowledge related to soil health and sustainable farming.