Localising R&D in Bukidnon, Philippines: Experiences of The World Agroforestry Centre with landcare

The World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) has been part of the multi-sector effort to promote agroforestry in the Philippines, especially among upland swidden agriculturists and upland farmers. Upland farming communities represent the poorest of the poor in the rural sector and, lacking in voice, they are largely marginalized from the mainstreams of society. These conditions exist in the municipality of Lantapan in the mountainous province of Bukidnon, one of the three ICRAF research sites in the Philippines. The upland ecosystem of Lantapan represents similar upland situations in the Philippines and large parts of Southeast Asia. An old growth forest remains in the uppermost slopes while the rest of the landscape is a “mosaic” of Imperata-dominated grassland occasioned by intensive to extensive upland agriculture by both indigenous communities and migrant farmers. The forest cover of Lantapan is part of the Mt. Kitanglad Range Natural Park known for its rich biodiversity. It forms part of the headwater of the upper Manupali River, which supports a major irrigation system and feeds into a large hydropower facility that services major parts of the Mindanao Island. ICRAF’s presence in Lantapan started with its active involvement in USAID’s Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM-CRSP) in 1992. ICRAF played major role in R&D effort to better understand the dynamics of the upland systems in the Philippines, represented by Lantapan, as it provided leadership in the participatory development of improved agroforestry systems. ICRAF saw the vast potentials of Lantapan for agrofrestry-based R&D and established its Lantapan Research Site in 1994, its second research site in the country. In 1999, ICRAF scaled up a localised R&D strategy through Landcare. This paper describes the experiences and observations of the authors in their involvement in landcare in Lantapan and other municipalities

---

• View source