By Jey T. Ponce | Philrice Online
Virgilio Bautista of Santo Domingo Nueva Ecija has been a farmer since childhood. At 46, he still depends on the fruits of his labor and the gifts of his land to support his family’s daily expenses.
His life is certainly a tale of success and hardships. Though he experienced major defeats in life due to his losses in his rice farm, last cropping season was his season of feat.
Bautista once taught to leave his farm and work in Taiwan especially during the times when he had poor yield because he spent much on pesticides. But when the Integrated Pest Management-Collaborative Research Support Program (IPM-CRSP) reached their village through PhilRice researchers, he learned that there are other technologies and methods cheaper and more effective than pesticides. He tried Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizae (VAM) and Trichoderma as alternative to inorganic fertilizers and sex pheromone trap to know the right time to spray his crop. The use of these technologies eventually increased his income and improved his attitude and thinking about farm practices.
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