(First of Three Parts)
Famine, characterized by a widespread lack of food resulting in severe and prolonged hunger among a large segment of the population, has occurred in the past, even during biblical times.
The Holy Bible, in Genesis 55-57, recorded it: "So when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried out to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, 'Go to Joseph; whatever he says to you, you shall do.' When the famine was spread over all the face of the earth, then Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold them to the Egyptians; and the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. The people of all the earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the earth."
There is a possibility that famine may reoccur due to the increasing population and the destruction of ecosystems that sustain life. Lester R. Brown expressed this concern in an article published in World Watch: "We could be heading for unimaginable trouble if we continue to strip the planet of its forest cover, to erode its cropland, overgraze its rangelands, over pump its aquifers, deplete its oceans, pollute its air, pump excessive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and destroy the habitats of our fellow creatures."
Environmentalists and scientists have differing views on the outcomes of these issues. "But globally, it is food scarcity that may soon become the principal manifestation of continuing population growth and environmental mismanagement," Brown pointed out.
Food insecurity has the potential to incite conflict in various regions around the world. In Mindanao, there are wars and there are wars. But the Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center (MBRLC) Foundation, Inc., a non-governmental organization located in Kinuskusan, Bansalan, Davao del Sur, is engaged in a different type of war: combating soil erosion.
However, Filipinos are largely unaware of this quiet, ongoing conflict. What they fail to realize is that soil erosion poses a significant threat to any country.
"Soil erosion is an enemy to any nation – far worse than any outside enemy coming into a country and conquering it because it is an enemy you cannot see vividly," said Harold R. Watson, an American agriculturist who received a Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1985 for peace and international understanding. "It's a slow creeping enemy that soon possesses the land."
Watson is aware of this. He previously served as the director of MBRLC; now retired, he has returned to his hometown in Mississippi. He arrived in the Philippines during the 1960s and at that time, he raised concerns about deforestation and soil erosion.
Unfortunately, people mocked him. They remarked, "We will never exhaust our supply of trees!" This was prior to the acknowledgment of his insights by several presidents, various Asian governments, the United Nations, and numerous farmers.
When Ferdinand Magellan "rediscovered" the Philippines in 1521, forests covered 95% of the country. By the time of the Ormoc City tragedy in Leyte, which resulted in 8,000 fatalities, the timber coverage had dwindled to just 18%.
In 1971, Watson opened the MBRLC, a research and demonstration farm, to the public. Initially, they floundered. "When I arrived, I was unaware of the issues present in the hills," stated the American who has spent nearly half of his life in the Philippines. "Farming appeared quite promising at first glance."
Soon, Watson realized that the issue lay with the surface: it was eroding. Loggers – both legal and illegal – were extracting trees from the once-abundant mountains, resulting in barren hillsides. Indigenous communities and migrants were employing "slash and burn" techniques (kaingin) to clear and cultivate the uplands, leading to a rapid loss of topsoil that outpaced its natural replenishment. The outcome: diminished agricultural yield, widespread hunger, and a sense of despair.
"Most of these farmers don't have a vision to see five or 10 years down the line," Watson said. "Most live for one more day, and don't lift their head up. They're not thinking about erosion. It's 'What can I get out of the land today, right now?'"
Soil scientists assert that 58 percent of the nation's total land area, which spans 30 million hectares, is vulnerable to erosion. "For one, the extent of soil erosion in cultivated sloping regions has reached a concerning level," the late Angel C. Alcala said when he was still the secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Archaeological research indicates that ancient civilizations were compromised by soil erosion. The once-fertile wheat-producing regions that rendered North Africa the granary of the Roman Empire have largely transformed into desert. Similarly, the lowlands of Guatemala, which once supported a flourishing Mayan civilization of five million individuals, have lost their fertility due to soil erosion.
"Without soil, there would be no food apart from what the rivers and the seas can provide," pointed out Edouard Saouma, former director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "The soil is the world's most precious natural resource. Yet it is not valued as it should be. Gold, oil, minerals and precious stones command prices which have led us to treat soil as mere dirt."
Soil, aptly referred to as "the bridge between the inanimate and the living," is composed of weathered and decomposed bedrock, water, air, organic matter resulting from the decay of plants and animals, and a multitude of life forms, predominantly microorganisms and insects. All these components contribute to the intricate ecology of healthy soil.
In the humid tropics, soil can develop from a sandy foundation in as little as 200 years. However, this process typically requires a significantly longer duration. Under most circumstances, soil forms at a rate of one centimeter every 100 to 400 years, necessitating between 3,000 and 12,000 years to generate sufficient soil for productive land.
"This means that soil is, in effect, a non-renewable resource," says a FAO publication. "Once destroyed, it is gone forever."
While soil erosion occurs naturally, it is a gradual process. Nevertheless, human activities have accelerated the rate of natural erosion. David Pimentel, an agricultural ecologist at Cornell University, states that exposed soil is eroded at rates several thousand times greater than the natural rate.
"Under normal conditions, each hectare of land loses somewhere between 0.004 and 0.05 tons of soil to erosion each year – far less than what is replaced by natural soil building processes," one study reported.
Several studies have shown that on lands that have been logged or converted to crops and grazing, however, erosion typically takes away 17 tons in a year in the United States or Europe and 30 to 40 tons in Asia, Africa, or South America. On severely degraded land, the hemorrhage can rise to 100 tons in a year.
"No other soil phenomenon is more destructive worldwide than is soil erosion," wrote Nyle C. Brady in his book, The Nature and Properties of Soils. "It involves losing water and plant nutrients at rates far higher than those occurring through leaching. More tragically, however, it can result in the loss of the entire soil."
In their book, Soil Erosion: Quiet Crisis in the World Economy, author Brown and Edward C. Wolf said soil erosion threatens food production: "The loss of topsoil affects the ability to grow food in two ways. It reduces the inherent productivity of land, both through the loss of nutrients and degradation of the physical structure. It also increases the costs of food production."
The two authors continue: "When farmers lose topsoil, they may increase land productivity by substituting energy in the form of fertilizer. Farmers losing topsoil may experience either a loss in land productivity or a rise in costs (of inputs). But if productivity drops too low or costs rise too high, farmers are forced to abandon their land."
A recent study by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution concluded that approximately 30 percent of the world's arable crop land has been abandoned because of severe soil erosion in the last 40 years.
"When soils are depleted and crops are poorly nourished, people are often undernourished as well," Brown and Wolf contend. "Failure to respond to the erosion threat will lead not only to the degradation of land, but to the degradation of life itself."
Fortunately, the MBRLC has identified a sustainable agricultural system that effectively reduces soil erosion. This system is referred to as Sloping Agricultural Land Technology (SALT). "The concept of SALT mirrors that utilized by the Ifugao tribes," explains Jethro P. Adang, the current director of MBRLC. "Essentially, we are advocating for the use of nitrogen-fixing trees and shrubs in place of rocks."
The SALT system necessitates meticulous management of the spaces between the rows of trees and shrubs. It is advisable to incorporate a mix of permanent, semi-permanent, and annual crops to restore the ecosystem and optimize yields, while also allowing farmers to manage their work schedules effectively.
Within a SALT farm, one can observe a variety of permanent crops (such as cacao, coffee, bananas, and other fruit trees), cereals (including upland rice, corn, or sorghum), and vegetables (like bush sitao, winged beans, sweet pepper, tomato, eggplant, etc.). Typically, every third strip of land is allocated to permanent crops. The remaining two strips are planted with a combination of different cereals and vegetables; each designated a specific area to facilitate seasonal rotation.
"Crop rotation helps to preserve the regenerative properties of the soil and avoid the problems of infertility typical of traditional agricultural practices," Alimoane explains on the importance of regular rotation of crops.
And yes, SALT helps control soil erosion. Its study showed that a farm tilled in the traditional manner erodes at the rate of 1,163.4 metric tons per hectare per year. In a SALT farm, there is still erosion but minimal – 20.2 metric tons per hectare per year.
The rate of soil loss in a SALT farm is 3.4 metric tons per hectare per year, which is within the tolerable range. Most soil scientists place acceptable soil loss limits for tropical countries like the Philippines within the range of 10 to 12 metric tons per hectare per year.
In comparison, the non-SALT farm has a soil loss rate of 194.3 metric tons per hectare per year.
"Soil is related to the earth much as the rind is related to an orange," commented an American geologist. "It is the link between the rock core of the earth and the living things on its surface. It is the foothold for the plants we grow. Therein lies the main reason for our interest in soil." (Next: The seas are running out of fish)