Kalubian Ni Lolo: A Coconut-based Permaculture Living System

CEBU, Philippines - It was just a place of growing wild grasses. A huge area filled with coconut trees, large bamboo grooves, and Madre de cacao plants. Who would have thought that

the vast agricultural land between Lugo and Clavera, Borbon, Cebu would become a place that shelters 19 families while providing them an instant living?

Nestor Gloria was nurtured for more than five decades in a farming family.He graduated from the University of the Philippines Los Baños College of Agriculture, with a degree of Master of Science in Horticulture, class 1982. He also got a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Education (BSAgED) and was employed at the Visayas State College of Agriculture (VSU) in Baybay, Leyte (1972-76).

Gloria is now a proprietor of a small-scale business in Permaculture in Mandaue City.He was formerly involved in a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funded project on farming systems where he gained numerous ideas on the integrated approach to farming. After his retirement, he took his career to the world of agricultural farm production known as permaculture.

"Permaculture is an integrated and holistic approach signifying the entirety of life which is not limited to sustainable farming system only. It highly encompasses the totality of the living," Gloria pointed out.

Although the original focus of permaculture was to provide sustainable food production, Gloria said that the philosophy of permaculture has lengthened over time and it now applies to the method of interconnecting the social systems, economic and cultural beliefs of people.

There are seven application domains resembling the concept of permaculture. Domain application for:

1.            Land and Nature Stewardship

2.            Land Tenure and Communist Governance

3.            Natural Way and Health and Spiritual Wellbeing

4.            Eco-house, Eco-village Designs

5.            Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology

6.            Alternative Economics and Sustainable Finance

7.            Sustainable Education and Culture

The permaculture designs evolve from these domains. An application domain relevant to the lifelong development project called "Kalubian ni Lolo" supervised by Gloria is the "Land and Nature Stewardship".

The goals of the project exist to intensify crop production, improve soil fertility, and develop healthy and balanced farm ecology. It desires to establish a spiritual sanctuary, and attract natural avian species. It also aims for building-up of beneficial insects like spiders and grasshoppers. Apart from that is to increase flower pollination through bee culture. Another is to establish a farm resort, camping site and develop direct farm to market outlets.

The structure of the project is an agro-ecological managed by 2 groups: the "primary stewards" who are the heirs of the late Mr. & Mrs. Fulgencio M. Perez and the "secondary stewards"consisting of 19 households in the community. The latter are assigned to specific territorial zones that cater to crop-livestock production amid coconut trees.

The project is approximately 40 hectares located in 2 barangays: Lugo and Clavera, Borbon, Cebu. It revolves around a Coconut-based Permaculture Living System known to be an enduring development plan that implies the importance of agriculture over holistic living. Particularly, it involves cooperation in the whole living system.

According to Gloria, the living system is viable and integrated as it covers all aspects of life including the identification of all parties involved in an ecosystem.

Meanwhile, Gloria together with his family had come up with a "we-opic" view on this project. "We-opic" refers to the coordination of each member in the system.Also, it shows the main focus of the development that deals with cooperative and collective skill that empowers the primary stewards as an effective and productive multi-disciplinary team.

Gloria mentioned that the developmental project was mainly established for sustainable agricultural production that provides opportunities for informal training. "It is like teaching the people and considering them as students in a room without walls," Gloria said.

The 19 beneficiaries excluding the occasional workers can raise cattle and goats with capital investment from the land owner. They can also plant unlimited cash crops as their added source of income. Gloria pointed out that they do not demand a share of their harvests.

All members of this lifelong project must make their life not just a living. Gloria makes sure that they should live life to the fullest with the knowledge of what purpose every man partakes in their lives.

"After all, cooperation not competition is the essence of this venture," Gloria concluded. (FREEMAN)