The SEED Farm is now harvesting organic lakatan banana in a once barren land thickly covered with lahar and supplying two supermarkets in nearby San Fernando City. Fruit peddllers in nearby barangays also get their bananas from the SEED Farm. Ducut said that his uncle’s farm could show assistance given by the BPI to his unproductive land. He said the BPI Crop Production Division helped him establish the farm last year to showcase the bureau’s mature technologies. The land used to be a grazing area where only grasses, shrubs and bushes grow.
Using the BPI technology, the area of 6.4 hectares was planted to good number of mango, rambutan and durian coming from various centers of the BPI. These fruit trees were intercropped with tissue culture derived from banana to give ample shades to the trees.
The laid-out holes were filled with chicken dung and rice hulls mixed with top soil and 200 grams ammonium sulfate before planting the seedlings for soil conditioning. While waiting for the trees to bear fruits, vacant spaces were planted to cash crops like vegetables, mungbean and peanut. Staggered planting of sweet corn was also done.
When the bananas bear fruits planting of cash crops were minimized as there were less sunlight on the partly shaded fruit orchard.