“Agriculture is the greatest and fundamentally the most important of our industries. The cities are but the branches of the tree of national life, the roots of which go deeply into the land. We all flourish or decline with the farmer.” – Bernard Baruch
Negros agriculture is at risk but all is not lost. Ironies of events happened in Negros since the sugar industry crisis hit the province that made us globally infamous. At the same time, this taught us a lesson very painfully.
When the Organic Act of 2010 was enacted in 2010 Negros was a couple of years ahead in promoting the island the Organic hub of South East Asia. This would have not been possible without the strong advocacy and pursuit of Negros organic agriculture advocates including environmentalists. Dependence to sugarcane has played a key role in shifting the mindset of the Negrenses from a mono-crop based economy to a diversified and improved Negros agriculture. This paradigm shift, so to speak, even influenced stakeholders at the national level. Showcasing Negros as the Organic capital of the country and that of South East Asia must have a strong basis – for two decades now, arguably, there has been a strong Negros organic agriculture movement as one of the major defining factors. This pursuit is imperative.
DE-FORESTED NEGROS
However, it is important to highlight some important facts and figures that directly connect to agricultural productivity of the province. From 2002 to 2021, the province lost 170 hectares of humid primary forest, making up 2.4 percent of its total tree cover loss in the same time period. In 2010, Negros Occidental had 197,000 hectares of natural forest, extending over 28 percent of its land area and, in 2021, it lost 193 hectares of natural forest, equivalent to 100,000 tons of CO₂ emissions. The province has five top areas responsible for 54 percent of all tree cover loss between 2001 and 2021. Hinoba-an had the most tree cover loss at 1.38 kilometer hectare compared to an average of 236 hectares. From 2001 to 2012, Negros Occidental gained 2.47 square kilometers of tree cover equivalent to 0.91 percent of all tree cover gain in Philippines. As of 2000, 25 percent of Negros Occidental was natural forest cover.
The significance of these figures is that Negros agriculture – its major crops largely depend on irrigation to ensure productivity. The lack or the absence of water manifests a big threat to food security. Our forests close to a century have been denuded ranging from the time of the Insular Lumber in the 1930’s, mining in the 1960’s until 1990’s. These almost catastrophic events have rendered the far south of the province defenseless to natural calamities such as typhoons and floods mercilessly destroyed the CHICKS area. From typhoon Nitang in the 80’s to super typhoon Odette in 2021.
THE NEGROS FOREST COVER
It is composed of three discrete but contiguous areas—Mount Kanlaon Natural Park, the Bago River Watershed, and the Northern Negros Natural Park (NNNP)—totaling some 150,000 hectares of forest land combined. One of the 7 most threatened major bio-geograhic regions is the Negros-Panay region (Heaney and Regalado, 1998). This area is now recognized as one the world’s tenth priority conservation areas. This area contains the most endemic species or subspecies that are ‘functionally extinct’ or critically endangered within the whole of the Philippines. Negros itself has only 4 percent of its original forest cover left putting a huge amount of pressure on the remaining endemic species and the purpose it serves not ignored.
REGAINING BIODIVERSITY AND BALANCED ECO-SYSTEM
Without water agricultural productivity is almost impossible. The Mount Kanlaon Natural Park is the major source of water that provides irrigation in the entire 4th district and even extending to 5th district where we produce and main and staple crop – rice. Destroyed natural catch basins in southern part cause by logging and mining have rendered major production areas practically dead. What has been lost cannot be replaced but our forests need to be replenished in order to produce and hold water to regain fertility and productivity of our barren lands.
The government and all stakeholders must put its efforts to save Negros agriculture including other stakeholders. Advancement of technologies must not sacrifice environment. This is not to say that there are no efforts being undertaken to protect Negros environment and recover agricultural productivity its benefits equally re-distributed. They are simply not enough.*
