Who says kaingin is bad?

MANILA, Philippines - Time was when kaingin (slash-and-burn farming) was outrightly condemned as a destructive upland agriculture practice that has considerably contributed to the denudation of vast tracts of the country’s forestlands.

The traditional system of kaingin (also known as swidden farming) entails clearing and burning of a patch of forest area for agricultural purposes.

A few years later, however, the kaingin becomes barren and unproductive, prompting its cultivator to move on to another area of the forest and start a new cycle of upland cultivation, leaving behind a wasteland.

Now comes a study asserting that swidden farming is not really that destructive as the term usually suggests.

“On the contrary, it promotes plant diversity, preserves indigenous plant varieties, and provides organic fertilizer and food for some biotic components of the ecosystem,” stressed Prof. Anacleto Caringal and Mars Panganiban of the Batangas State University (BSU) in Batangas City.

Subsistence and cash crops in kaingin farms enhance plant diversity, contended the study, which was monitored by the Los Baños-based Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD). The study had been presented at an R&D symposium of the Southern Tagalog Agriculture and Resources Research and Development Consortium (STARRDEC), one of the 14 PCARRD-coordinated government regional R&D consortia.

Observed in the kaingin farms studied by the BSU researchers were many genera, families, and species of vegetables, rootcrops, fruit crops, legumes, spices and condiments, and forage and pasture grasses.

Prof. Caringal and Panganiban also noted that swidden farm served as repository of traditional crops varieties.

“Rice varieties (malagkit, inuway, pinilik, inabaka, and tinalahiban) native corn (putian, lagkitan, pula), and leafy vegetables (kulantro and biri) have been preserved in these farms,” they reported.

Phytomass decomposition in the site from the harvest of corn, peanut, rice, and camote in kaingin farms provides organic fertilizer. They are also used as green manure and mulches for garlic and other agricultural crops.

Instead of burning the organic materials, they are recycled and brought back into the soil, thus restoring soil fertility, the researchers said.

Caringal and Panganiban also noted the availability of food for animals such as grains, cereals, fruits, and rootcrops.