When The New World & The New Beings Met, The Humans Forgot About Being True To Mother Earth, She Who Gave Them Their Genes And Geniuses!
Above, I
see plowed soil turned mud piles around an ocean of dark water. Our farmers turn
a lusty green field (right) into a lake of water and mud (left) – and nearby UP
Los Baños approves, or does not object! This field is actually for growing
flower crops, but a ricefield is treated exactly the same in the beginning. I
should know – I am a farmer’s son in Asingan, Pangasinan. (Have you seen IRRI’s
experimental fields?)
(Images: “Pentecost Sunday” from Facebook sharing of Irma Santos Paulme;
field shot by me 09 Dec 2016 in Laguna)
Now I will
mix religion with agriculture. The Catholics believe in miracles, and I
Catholic can demonstrate a miracle via the ricefield!
I can grow rice without any fertilizer and
outyield my neighbor farmers all the time!
No, I don’t own a farm – but we did; and many years ago, I
was with my brother-in-law Enso Casasos,
farmhand to my aging father, and I told the operator of the huge Howard tractor
with the huge rotavator blades – to simply run that monster over the field setting
depth of cut to zero. I was going to turn those weeds into natural fertilizer
in a miraculous way:
With my rotavator
method, immediately, an earthly miracle happens – that machine-made &
machine-distributed layer of trash starts to turn itself into an organic mulch
that has all the natural richness crops need!
You
cannot find a more-fertile fertilizer than that layer of trash created by that
rotavator idly running following man’s instructions!
Enso treasured that Asingan rotavator episode. And so, about
20 years later, when I visited my barrio Sanchez in my hometown, Enso told me
in so many words:
Manong, malagipmo ni
Papang (my father Dionisio whom Enso also called “Papang” in respect and
closeness) ken daydi insurom iti daydi Howard operator ti rotavator idiay
Domanpot? Umisisem ti bangbangir! Ket pinadasko. Itatta, dagiti kaarrubak nga
mannalon, agsidsiddaawda latta gapu to uray ania ti aramidenda, tuladenda amin
nga makitada nga araramidek, apay ket dida maala ti apitko nga nagngato?
Maabakda latta agingga ita!
[(My free translation: “Manong (elder brother in Ilocano), do
you remember Papang and what you instructed the Howard rotavator in Domanpot? He
was smiling on one side of his face! (Me: I told him to set the depth of cut to
zero, nil, because I knew that the rotavator set was itself so heavy it will
cut into the soil anyway – and so the rotavator was hardly using any diesel
fuel to run it!) I tried it myself, and my neighbor farmers have been copying
everything I have been doing – but never could match my yield!]
If
you follow the laws of Mother Earth, she will grant all your wishes!@517
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