We have been traveling throughout the country the past several months and everywhere we go, everybody seems to be getting into some kind of organic or natural farming. It is the same in Iloilo, Negros, Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Rizal, Mindoro, Bohol, Cebu, Leyte, Bicol, Davao, General Santos - everywhere. Farmers are growing crops as well as livestock and poultry the natural farming way.

Even in Metro Manila, interest in natural farming is growing. In fact a group of professionals have asked Andry Lim of Davao City to conduct a seminar on natural farming on August 1 at the Cancio Calma compound in Pasong Tamo, Makati City. He will also conduct a similar one at the Clark Development Zone in Pampanga. Previously, he and wife Joji had been invited to Bicol to conduct similar trainings.

Andry Lim focuses his natural farming on the use of beneficial microorganisms and herbal extracts to nourish his crops as well as his farm animals.

On the other hand, in General Santos City, Capt. James Fos Reamon, a commercial pilot who is doing his own brand of organic farming, uses a lot of vermicast and vermicompost to grow his high-value vegetables. His farm was one of the places visited by attendees of the recent vegetable congress held in General Santos City. He is also the inventor of the prize-winning brewer for making vermi tea used as foliar fertilizer. He reports that a farmer in Nueva Ecija fertilized his 30-hectare rice farm with nothing but vermi tea last year and got an average of 100 cavans per hectare. Total expense for fertilizer was only R2,000 per hectare.

Because of the growing interest in organic farming, we have gathered that Wellington Chanlim who operates a big poultry farm in Bantayan Island and who is into many other businesses has greatly expanded his production of the bio-organic fertilizer Durabloom. Besides his factory in Bantayan, he has put up another big factory in Consolacion. He now has a total production of 60,000 bags of Durabloom per month which are sold to corn planters in Panay island, sugarcane plantations in Mindanao, oil palm plantations in Bohol, Mindanao, Palawan and many other places in the Visayas and Mindanao.

In Mindanao, we gathered that 50 perccent of the rice farmers in Trento, Agusan del Sur, are already into organic farming. Also pushing for organic farming is the Catholic Relief Services based in Mindanao. Recently, it put out a book on Natural Farming Technology Systems in English and Visayan. The processes in making different organic farming inputs are well illustrated. And stories of successful organic farmers are featured in the book.