Farmers are likely to ignore the risks of further encroaching into upland forests because climate change is forcing them to, according to experts.

Edwino Fernando, a forest botanist of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), and Roberto Cereno, deputy director of the Makiling Center for Mountain Ecosystems, explored this scenario with officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) last week.

LUCBAN, Quezon—When Claro Talaga, 65, decided to hang up his political gloves in 1998, he turned to farming, overseeing an 11-hectare property in Barangay (village) Nagsinamo in Lucban, Quezon, at the foot of Mount Banahaw.

“I want a serene life after spending long years in politics. … Farming brings me contentment and the peace that I’m now enjoying,” said Talaga, a three-term provincial board member and executive secretary of two Quezon lawmakers for several years.

Early this year, a friend, who maintains a mushroom farm in another Lucban village, visited Nagsinamo and introduced him to the health benefits and business potential of growing mushrooms.

“When he saw my farm and three abandoned structures, he [found]… an ideal place for mushroom culturing. He invited me to his own mushroom farm and offered me a delicious meatless mushroom soup,” Talaga said.

The encounter initiated him into the business, plus the fact that his doctor had advised him to avoid eating meat and strictly maintain a diet because of his frail health.

UP assistance

Talaga converted the three farm buildings that once housed a “nata de coco” factory into seven mushroom culturing rooms. Each room has an average of 700 fruiting bags of oyster and ganoderma varieties stacked in several racks.

To better understand his endeavor, he sought help from the University of the Philippines (UP) Los Baños in Laguna, which subsequently sent personnel to Lucban and conducted an on-site lecture to farm workers on the latest know-how on mushroom culturing.

FOR his many contributions that have had unprecedented impact on agriculture, Dr. Ramon C. Barba, now 72, was awarded the 2011 Umali Award by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) last Wednesday in Los Baños.

The plant scientist from the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) is the first Filipino to receive the award and the third recipient in Southeast Asia.

The $10,000-award, given to outstanding Southeast Asian scientists, is named after the late National Scientist Dioscoro L. Umali, a founding Director of SEARCA and former Assistant Director General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Foremost among Barba’s researches was a breakthrough discovery in 1974 of mango flower induction by potassium nitrate, making it possible for fruits to be available all year round.