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