Green revolution and the national greening program

LONG before climate change became a byword among environment conscious individuals and groups, there were national programs relating to caring for mother earth back in the 60s and 70s that I vividly remember as a child. Other than learning to sing Levi Cilerio's “Bagong Pagsilang”, we had the Green Revolution program where tree seedlings were dispersed and planted by practically everyone in the communities. We planted Agoho saplings and we witnessed how these grew into a robust tall trees until an alley expansion necessitated its cutting and succeeding typhoons finally caused to collapse and die. There was also the Masagana 99 program under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos that promoted the planting of high yielding rice varieties developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The term Masagana 99 refers to the number of sacks of rice yielded per hectare of land in every harvest and Marcos was credited for making the nation selfsufficient in rice and allowed the country to export rice for the first time to Asian neighbors.

With the country’s present National Greening Program (NGP) that seeks to grow 1.5 billion trees in 1.5 million hectares nationwide within a period of six years, from 2011 to 2016, fellow workers in government nationwide were given a quota to reforest public lands however, we are yet to see a comprehensive report whether the goal was met. Since my regional office boasts of its selection as the national agency champion for coffee as an industry, we chose Arabica coffee seedlings as our planting material under the NGP. We planted hundreds of coffee seedlings in our designated area in Barangay Sabkil and Ampucao of Itogon Benguet which is about 15 to 17 kilometers from Baguio. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources provided the seedlings and a personnel from the forestry office even accompanied us to the sites to mark the sites planted using a global positioning system (GPS) device.

Said to be a climate change mitigation strategy that enhances the country’s forest stock, the NGP reforestation initiative also seeks to absorb carbon dioxide which is largely blamed for global warming. It is also meant to reduce poverty by providing alternative livelihood activities for marginalized upland and lowland households relating to seedling production and care and maintenance of newly-planted trees.

With the current administration’s trying to adapt past best practices like the Green Revolution and Masagana 99, there are surprisingly new directives that do not conform to these efforts for reasons I cannot comprehend. I actually do not see the point why NGP planted Ipilipil trees be uprooted and replaced with pine when in fact the seedlings were provided by the agency tasked to be on top of the program and the planting were properly documented?

As someone who was once actively involved with the advocacy component of the Baguio Regreening Movement, I came to know that Ipil-ipil is great for nitrogen fixing and improving soil fertility. Nitrogen is vital to the success of a garden or orchard and plants will fail or unable to grow without sufficient nitrogen. Dr. Michael Bengwayan during a visit to his farm in La Trinidad once showed me Ipil Ipil nodules on its roots called Rhizobia bacteria which are responsible for pulling nitrogen out of the air and making it available to plants, which then use the nitrogen to create proteins. Accordingly, the bacteria converts nitrogen gas and then stores it in the roots of the plant. When the plant stores the nitrogen in the roots, it produces a lump on the root called a nitrogen nodule. This is harmless to the plant but very beneficial to a garden or a forest.

There are a lot of good things that I remember during the Martial Law years. Among the few are the Citizen’s Army Training in high school and the introduction of the Ford Fiera and the Toyota Tamaraw that caters to the rough provincial terrains as an all-around people- and cargo-hauler. With the City of Manila reintroducing the distribution of the nutrition-rich bread “Nutribun” and milk to underweight Kinder to Grade 6 students for a 120-day feeding program that showed 77% of the student beneficiaries registering at normal weight levels, this revival move of Mayor and former President Manila Mayor Joseph Ejercito Estrada shows that old ways are still relevant, we just have to attune it to the times.