SECOND TIME'S A CHARM: NORTH COTABATO FARMER FINDS PROFIT IN NATURAL FARMING
Agriculture|March - April 2021
FARMING is one of the sources of income at Aleosan municipality, North Cotabato. Vicente S. Cornelio, Jr Tatay Sinon to friends, from Barangay Palacat is one such farmer.
REX M. RUBIO
SECOND TIME'S A CHARM: NORTH COTABATO FARMER FINDS PROFIT IN NATURAL FARMING
The 67 year old is a huge proponent of natural farming in his area. Tatay Sinon started farming in 1998, planting corn using conventional methods because their mountainous area didn’t have enough space for growing rice.

Expecting a high profit, Tatay Sinon ended up what he calls, “short or failure,” which means all his farm income just went to expenses or to traders who supplied their seasonal needs for pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. “I [was] a conventional farmer for almost eight years and most of my profit goes to expenses for fertilizers, pesticides, and other instant agricultural products. Actually, it makes my life easy in farming but in [the] long run, I ended without savings, especially for my family,” he said in Ilonggo.

The struggle continued even until his children started college. By then, Tatay Sinon had to admit that farm income was not reliable as financial support due to small profit. “My farm income was always summarized with the ‘short,’ or literally no gain or profit at all after months of waiting. As a family, we ended up increasing our debts to agri-traders,” he half smiled.

Like other parents, Tatay Sinon dreamed of offering a good future for his growing children through the help of his farming but it did not seem possible. The income for his farm never seemed to meet their needs. “I was more than bothered, and struggled when some of my children started schooling in college. I did not know what to do, especially during the end of the month when my children needed an allowance and budget for their tuition fees. I needed to do something. It wasn’t good anymore,” Tatay Sinon recalled.

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