One of the most fulfilling activities of the New People’s Army (NPA) is our production work with the masses. Sometimes it felt we move like machines while we build and develop our agricultural lands. In advancing the agrarian revolution, we work together with the masses to support their livelihood and to ensure we can sustain the needs of the people’s army. So instead of the exploitative practice of commercialized agriculture perpetuated by the ruling class, the NPA uses and advocates for “guerrilla farming”—and scientists have a big role to play in this!
Guerrilla farming vs monocrop
One of the most prevalent problems in the countryside is monocrop farming—the practice of cultivating only one kind of crop in an entire farmland. In our area, the primary livelihood of the masses is copra production, essentially it’s monocrop. Coconut is a cash crop that has to be sold converted into money for the farmer’s essential needs.
For tenants who don’t own land, they sell their labor to landlords and profits are split between them. The rates vary from place to place. In our area, the profit is split 50/50 between the tenant and the landlord, despite the landlord having no contribution to actual farming, maintenance of crops and the implements used. The landlords don’t allow peasants to plant other crops under coconut trees.
Aside from coconut farming, the peasants have access to vast lands in the mountain slopes where they have kaingin (slash-and-burn agriculture). Members of our unit pondered on how we can maximize parts of these lands and transform them into a more productive farmland.
When we visited Manong Tango, he showed us his land on the slopes of a mountain. The abundance of his cassava farm is impressive. Aside from being their source of food, Manong Tango also sells cassava to help his children and grandchildren. There is one problem, though—the crops are not growing evenly along the slope. One of our comrades, an agriculturist by training, explained that water carries the nutrients in the soil from the top to the bottom, so the crops are more abundant at the bottom.
Another comrade jokingly asked, “So how can we flatten the land without flattening the land?” This is where we started our “guerrilla farming” project—a term we coined to counter the monocrop farming of the ruling class.
With Manong Tango’s cassava farm as pilot site, we started to contour the slopes to build agricultural terraces on the valley. These terraces expanded the area for planting and it also helped evenly spread the nutrients throughout the land.
We used an A-frame (an instrument to measure the steepness of the slope) that we made from thin branches. This was my first time to measure land—and it was pretty fun! We then placed cassava cuttings in each terrace from top to bottom. Seen from a distance, it looked like a mini version of the Banaue Rice Terraces. A comrade joked that this was our “kamoteng kahoy terraces,” to which we all laughed.
We also introduced multi-crop farming in a kaingin of another farmer, Manong Ron. We joined him everyday in cultivating multiple types of crops in his field. Again, we built terraces and planted different types of crop in each terrace such as cassava, taro, and others. Seeing all these, it’s as if we planted a rainbow in the soil! Multi-cropping is also important to ensure soil health, manage pests, and to be able to harvest crops alternately in a year. Now, Manong Ron’s family has food on their table year round.
“When we came back to the guerrilla farms we helped build after a few months, I became teary-eyed at the lushness and beauty of our crops. Our unit was so happy to harvest cassava to make cassava rolls—our go-to food when successive typhoons hit the area.”
Why did we call our project guerrilla farming? The reactionary state and bureaucracy work hand-in-hand to limit the knowledge of the peasantry on their production work. Because various farming methods such as land contouring and multi-cropping are not practiced, farmers are not able to scientifically develop these methods outside of the agrarian revolution. But, though collective effort, Manong Tango ang Manong Ron was able to learn and practice diverse ways to improve their farm production.
When we came back to the guerrilla farms we helped build after a few months, I became teary-eyed at the lushness and beauty of our crops. Our unit was so happy to harvest cassava to make cassava rolls—our go-to food when successive typhoons hit the area.
Agricultural education to advance agrarian revolution
The revolutionary movement’s aim is to liberate the peasantry from landlessness and abject poverty. The backwardness of agriculture and the landlessness of the peasants is a reflection of a semifeudal economy. As the revolution strives towards the distribution of land to the tillers, the NPA also strives to popularize and develop advanced practices in agriculture.
From our experience, the practice of land contouring and multi-crop farming has become effective for the farmers to increase not only their yield and subsequently their source of food and additional income. In popularizing this practice along with the campaign for land redistribution, we can make big strides in advancing the agrarian revolution.
It has also become clearer how scientists, engineers, and intellectuals can contribute substantially in the countryside. Through applying scientific concepts to the reality of life and struggle in the countryside, we can help the peasant masses in many ways—from specialized knowledge in agriculture and mathematics, to using and aiming a rifle, there are a myriad of ways we can apply our knowledge in the tasks of the NPA.
From the rotten approach to agriculture to landlessness and feudal and semifeudal practices of the reactionary state and the landlords, it is obvious that the only way is for us to join the national democratic revolution and advance agrarian revolution in the countryside—where scientists, engineers, and professionals can live and share their expertise with the peasant masses and with the New People’s Army. (This article, written by Cassandra Bigwas, is republished and edited from Agham Bayan, theofficial publication of the Liga ng Agham para sa Bayan-LAB-NDFP). ###
