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Sophie Malherbe & Noa Ligot
After our first visit in the Philippines, in the Taal region, it was clear that volcanic tephra fall had many impacts on agricultural production. Our question was, would those repercussions be the same in another region of the Philippines, and do farmers across different parts of the country adapt the same way to a “same” threat?
To that end, we decided to visit the province of Albay, in which around 1.4 million people live, and which hosts the Mayon volcano, on the main island of Luzon. The Mayon is a stratovolcano culminating at 2462 meters and erupts roughly every five to ten years. This is a major difference with the Taal volcano, whose eruptions are few and far between taking the people close to it by surprise, while the inhabitants of Albay are quite used to regular tephra fall.
This fieldwork took place in October 2022, with the help of local NGOs Viva Salud, the Manila chapter of Solidagro, Climate Change Network for Community-based Initiatives (CCNCI) and Tarabang para sa Bicol (TABI). We conducted semi-structured interviews, the same way we did around the Taal volcano, in eight farms to the South-West of the Mayon, whose surface area ranged from one to seven hectares. Seven of the farms produced both for their personal family consumption and for market sales, while one was a purely subsistence farm.
Figure 1: Localisation of the Mayon volcano (red) and the eight surveyed farms during the 2022 fieldwork (yellow) in the Philippines (map made with AcrGIS Pro)
Figure 2: Mayon Volcano, October 2022 [picture: Noa Ligot]
During our stay, we learned that the Albay region reacted to the volcano’s omnipresence quite differently than that of Batangas, around the Taal. Indeed, not only did the farmers themselves but also the administration and government present adaptations to the frequent eruptions that can only come from being exposed to that threat on a regular basis.
For instance, rice is a very common staple in the Philippines, and it is cultivated by many of the farms around the Mayon volcano, the extensive and relatively flat terrain being well suited for this crop. While we had witnessed some rice growing in the Taal region, only in Albay does the government provide rice seeds to every farmer twice a year – once every season – to plant their fields. This way, even if the previous harvest is lost to a volcanic eruption, everyone will be able to replant and will not be dependent on how much revenue they were able to generate after such an event. In the same vein, in Batangas, there were evacuation centres to accommodate the evacuated population after the eruption, who had to stay away from the volcano for quite some time, leading to great livestock losses due to their inability to tend to their animals. In Albay, however, there are also evacuation centres for livestock, particularly large and medium animals such as cattle and goats, to avoid such issues.
Figure 3: Rice field from one of the surveyed farms, October 2022 [picture: Noa Ligot]
One of the farmers, situated inside the 11-km danger zone, was a beekeeper, and his honey and bee colonies were his main source of income. Knowing that bees are extremely sensitive the tephra fall and that every eruption potentially means a complete loss of his colonies, he devised a plan to get back on his feet quickly. He decided to expand his activity to include training new beekeepers who wanted to start their own production, further away from the volcano, and gave each leaving student a colony to start his business. This way, while his trainees expand their colonies and are grateful for his help, he can ask for new colonies in return when his own are destroyed.
Figure 4: Stingless bees colonies, from one of the surveyed farm, October 2022 [picture: Suyin Jamoralin]
In the end, this fieldwork helped us realise that, even if tephra can have very similar impacts on a given agricultural production – covering a rice field with ash in Batangas or Albay will result in major losses regardless of geography –, the response of the farmers and the government to that threat are essential in dealing with its consequences. It seems that the regular, almost routine-like occurrences of tephra fall from the Mayon volcano has increased the farmer’s resilience to it, as well as their approach of the event itself. While we expected farmers around the Mayon volcano to be afraid, in some capacity, of volcanic eruptions the same way those around the Taal were, we were surprised to hear that they were a lot more concerned by typhoons. We learned this firsthand when our work was cut short by one, forcing us to return to Manila two days before we had originally planned to.
Figure 5: Ducks from one of the surveyed farms, October 2022 [picture: Sophie Malherbe]
Figure 6: Coconut shells from coprah production operations, from one of the surveyed farms, October 2022 [picture: Sophie Malherbe]
Figure 7: Rice field being harvested, from one of the surveyed farms, October 2022 [picture: Sophie Malherbe]
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