Makò Micro-Press held a zine-making workshop for Masipag farmers and urban poor gardeners from Payatas in Santa Rosa, Nueva Ecija, four Saturdays ago, and I remain in awe of how palay seeds and the idea of small, independent presses weave together so well. 

I must admit that I knew very little of rice farming prior to that morning, though I have white rice in 99% of my meals. At the very least, I knew that our rice farmers’ control and agency over their palay were facing some danger of being ruled out with the arrival of genetically modified rice (read about “Golden Rice”) and the impositions of the International Rice Research Institute (Irri). Stretched to my brain’s fullest capacity, the strongest idea I had of seeds was Jesus Christ’s Parable of the Sower, in which the farmer and his scattering of seeds are allegorical to our fates, our choices, and the Kingdom of God. Seeds, I was sure, held that much meaning.

The workshop started with personal introductions by the farmers, less than 40 men and women who had traveled from different parts of the Philippines. We were at the Masipag national backup farm, a farm of no more than three hectares within 40 kilometers northeast of Mount Arayat. I was a bit ashamed to know about Masipag only then, when they had been around since 1985. 

Masipag is a nongovernment organization and its objective is pointed, borne out of the Irri’s and multinational companies’ meddling in the local rice production. The Masipag members told us the story of scientists—many of them disillusioned by the Irri’s narrow science—who in the 1980s conducted consultations with farmers on how the high-yielding varieties (HYV) of seeds were affecting them and their farms. This culminated in a national convention of scientists and farmer organizations which they dubbed the “Bigas Conference,” or the Bahanggunian Hinggil sa Isyu ng Bigas. There, they agreed that local farmers knew themselves, the communities they roamed, their land, and its surroundings most intimately and, therefore, it is they who should choose the types of seeds that they plant, grow, and eventually sell.

Autonomy 

This remains at the core of Masipag’s existence—the farmer’s autonomy. 

They did not, however, enter this endeavor with blind idealism. In fact, we were in one of Masipag’s three national backup farms, where they keep all the varieties of seeds they’ve ever bred preserved, archived, and organized. Empowering rice farmers with the choice to plant the palay they deem best for their specific wants and needs meant that there had to be a way for them to catalogue and to make various types of seeds always available. They showed us where they keep these seeds, over 2,000 varieties of them, in square plywood shelves lined with fragrant leaves to ward off pests, easily replicable by other farmers. The backup farms serve as insurance that, should a farmer foray into growing a certain breed of palay or attempt at breeding a new hybrid, seeds that they (and their land) were once comfortable with would always be on hand. 

This was all mind-blowing for me. For a long time, I held the idea that the many varieties of rice were simply created for the consumers’ budgets and preferences. There was NFA (National Food Authority) rice, budget dinorado, dinorado, and imported rice (most probably jasmine or Japanese rice). In my naive imaginings, farmers have but a few choices to make, plant the palay that yields the most profit, and pray that typhoons spare the crop so they can be rewarded with a bountiful harvest. I realized, then, that as a consumer, I had been made blissfully unaware of the lives of those who produce the food which I literally swallow whole three times a day. Such is the illusion, I guess, that comes with rice when it is served white and (seemingly) “unli”.

7 cycles

Masipag farmers also breed palay of their own type. To do this, they graft palay of different varieties, possessing different characteristics, for seven complete cycles—a process that takes at least three years. They breed palay of their own with the goal of producing varieties that suit the specific conditions of their farms, considering the (micro)climate, flora (e.g. weeds), and fauna (e.g. pests) in their area, and the eventual consumers (i.e. markets, buyers) they hope to sell their produce to. 

This is a major departure from the logic with which the Irri operates, where a god-seed is sought, made, and spread at whatever cost—a process that requires farmers to follow all the Irri’s directives, which often involve taking out bank loans, using only seeds and chemicals recommended and brought in by multinational companies, and, in the end, instinctively hoping to rake in maximum profits.

They showed us around the backup farm, pointing at patches of land sprouting specific breeds of rice and drawing the lines where two different breeds grow side by side and exchange qualities. Still finding it difficult to understand everything that I was hearing, I asked if there was a most popular variety of seed in their network. “No, there is no ‘best’ seed,” they readily answered. They explained that in the seed system with which Masipag works—informal, as opposed to the Irri’s “formal seed system”—the concept of a best seed eludes them because farming, for them, is not one-size-fits-all, not simply geared for profit, and is meant primarily for feeding people. 

They then told us a story of how the consumers’ preference for white rice—or tastier, not-too-filling rice—became one of the main reasons farmers found it difficult to make their own varieties of palay. Because white rice sells most easily, many are lured into believing that it is the only rice to grow. Incidentally, this has also led to unhealthier eating habits for our population; rice as a staple had to always go well with ulam and could be nothing else.

After the short tour, we had lunch of laing, kamote mashed with a bit of cinnamon, brown rice, and a variation of kangkong in spiced vinegar. In the afternoon, the members of Makò Micro-Press conducted a workshop on zine-making. Their admiration of the farmers and what the farmers do was apparent in how eager they were to share their message.

Back to basics

Each of us had been handed a zine in the morning. It was a single piece of paper, folded such that you could flip it open like you would a book, with pages the size of a palm for you to write notes on. Spread open, it would reveal a map of Masipag’s backup farm. I used mine to take notes for the day.

According to the Makò members, zines are simple ways to record and spread ideas. These days when so much of the hype is digital, zines bring writing back to basics and send a clear message: Anyone who wants to write should write, and anyone who cares to read should read. As the publishing industry evolved for centuries since the Gutenberg press, ideas had to be sifted through layers and layers of bureaucracy. Ideas had to fall into the hands of writers, had to be scrutinized by editors, had to be screened by publishers, had to work with academia, and had to suffer with marketing. This has led, for better or worse, to some censorship and to some disempowerment of those who never considered themselves as writers, editors, or even simply as readers. 

Zines, being independent of those processes, hope to challenge that.

When the farmers completed their zines, what we read were illustrated stories we had never heard of or seen before. For example, a farmer recounted how he made his own breed of seeds to fight off the birds that ate his palay. This breed of palay grew a single hair at the tip which choked the birds whenever they tried to swallow it, teaching them to steer clear of it. There were also stories of natural pesticides—spraying siling labuyo essences in gutters to ward off rats and finding them blinded early in the morning. These stories we seem to have lost in our blind subscription to giants like Monsanto Bayer.

Other stories were hopes for simplicity: just a good harvest and enough income to put their children through school. They also pasted grains on the paper, folded it in different ways, and drew the usual landscapes of farmland with two mountains and a sun shining down. These “too simple” stories would not make it to newspapers, books, or the little print we consume. Members of Makò took pictures, hoping to put them on display in future events.

We left Nueva Ecija at dusk that Saturday with many things to ponder. We took the exit that passed through Hacienda Luisita’s dusty gravel roads, and I couldn’t help but think, again, of the Parable of the Sower. I felt that, for a parable, it had such a rickety construction and a backward idea of seeds. I know that it is God who is the Sower and that we are the seeds thrown into different formations of soil, to grow, to be broken by weeds, or to be eaten by birds. But if we find a more thorough understanding of seeds and how so much of our lives begin and end with the seed, then how can the Sower mean for some seeds to fall on difficult ground?

DLS Pineda is an assistant professor at the Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines Diliman.

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