Legend:
*FP= field preparation/paddy repair
*PL = planting/re-planting/transplanting
*HR= weeding/pest management
*MA= fertilizer application
*HA = harvesting
Quantifying labor expended for a cropping season would elucidate how much time farmers would spend in a cropping season. Data showed that most of the time were spent on field preparation and paddy repair. In general, a growth trend of the percentage of change in time expenditure in all agriculture phases was observed. In particular, self-labor has an increase of 33.70% of time input in the FP phase alone and more than 50% of it was used in all phases. Self-labor was used primarily in FP and HR phases, and it was supported by the unpaid family labor. For the whole cropping season, unpaid family labor has almost 20% of time input and was used during the FP (3.68%), HR (5.75%), and HA (7.71) phases. The hired labor was used primarily in the HA (6.23%), PL (5.60%), and FP (4.43%) phases. For a cropping season, an increase of 18.47% time input was incurred using the hired labor. Exchange/ Cooperative labor was the least labor type (4.58%) used by farmers.
Productivity of land units is biased towards capital intensification arguing that productivity cannot be achieved through the use of traditional method of cultivation. Boserup’s model of productivity demonstrated that through labor intensification, agricultural production could be achieved. Using this theory to explain farmers’ time use and agricultural production, farmers’ efforts were concentrated on paddy repair indicating the instability of the paddy system. The data showed a 33.70% increase of time input on the use of the self-labor, implying that instead of hiring labor to do the repair task, farmers did the task themselves. This high increase of self-labor in the repair task was attributed to the numerous weather disturbances that visited the country. A total of 24-26 tropical depressions/ typhoons entered the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR) and Eastern Visayas is a typhoon path.
Other phase where self-labor was primarily utilized was on weeding/harrowing/ pest management phase incurring an 11.65% change of time input. Weeding was done manually, hence this task requires a number of workers. On pest management, farmers avoided the use of pesticides and other chemicals for they were already aware on the disadvantages of using agricultural chemicals. In these tasks, farmers were aided by unpaid family labor.
Exchange labor was the least labor type utilized by upland farmers with approximately 5% increase of time input for the whole cropping cycle. In situation that financial resource is quite scarce, farmers or upland communities need to be aware of the importance of collaborative efforts in the promotion of their goals and objectives. Exchange labor would be of help during labor scarcity, in the performance of multi-worker tasks, and in tasks perceived as being drudgerous. For instance, cooperative labor could be utilized during paddy repair, planting, weeding/ harrowing, fertilizer application, and harvesting seasons. In this manner, the needed cash intended to hire additional labor in the performance of other tasks could be used from some other purposes.
Diversification activities of upland farmers
Household units did engage in at least one type of livelihood options or a combination thereof to augment income for the support of the agricultural enterprise and sustenance of the household (Table 3). Livestock-raising, vegetable-raising, and tuba gathering – a local wine from coconut juice – were amongst the most favoured livelihood options undertaken by the households. Produce was sold either within or outside the locality. On the other hand, some household members sought temporary employment either as construction workers or doing some menial jobs as daily wage earners. Income generated from these endeavours was used as added capital for both farm needs and household subsistence. Farmers also employed multiple activities like fishing-vegetable raising and fishing-livestock-vegetable raising which were mostly practiced by farmers. Aside from agriculture-based activities, fishing is the secondary form of livelihood for the catch of the day could be easily converted to cash. However, earnings of the daily wage workers could not be higher than the mandated daily minimum wage because the level of education is one of the factors for getting high paying and gainful employment (Barrett et al., 2001; Ellis & Freeman, 2004; Meert et al., 2005). At the time of this report, the daily minimum wage was pegged at Php 386.00 or US $7.36 in the global standards. This number is much lower for the agricultural sector.
With rice as the main crop, households cultivated other crops for income augmentation to support both the farm and household needs. In this instance, the cultivation of crops was primarily a combination of perennial and annual crops while in some cases with the introduction of short-term crops or cash crops. For example, majority of the household maintained the banana-coconut combination i.e. an annual crop-perennial crop combination. Similar to other annual and perennial crops, time input requirement is minimal and will not eat up much time allotted for some other activities. Other combinations would include perennial-annual-short term crops. The short-term crops would be the source for immediate cash. In general, this mode of multi-cropping systems has been a product of experience and transmitted knowledge which proved to pay-off efforts of the upland farmers (Kidane & Zegeye, 2018).
Crop diversification served other purposes aside from financial ends like soil erosion or soil run-off. Upland farmers cultivated vegetations like lantana (Lantana camara ) and mura (Vetiveria zizanoides ) to minimize soil erosion and improved soil fertility. Farmers explained that when hedgerows are fully established, murahas a high-water holding capacity, hence controlling soil run-off.
Discussion
Unlike the industrial sector who used time to measure one’s productivity, the same cannot be used in a farming community where traditional know-how was still persistent in every phase of agricultural task (Stone et al., 1990). Traditional agriculture is equated with experience and the perpetuation of experience is verified through practice over time. Hence, an introduction of something new to the existing practice would entail a high-order of acceptance.
Table 3. Economic profile of the upland farm household other than rice farming