Life of a Farmer

The Farmers Life

        Mrs. Gemma Kalinggan is one of the farmers in Taloy Sur, Tuba, Benguet. She is already 39 years old and she is married to Mr. Kalinggan and they have two children.  Mrs. Gemma Kalinggan is the secretary of Taloy Sur Irrigation Association, an association wherein most of the members are farmers. She is active in seminars that are being conducted for the benefit of farmers.

        From the age of seven, she already knows how to work at the garden because his parents are also farmers. At present, she is a full time farmer. According to her, farming is not an easy job because you need to do heavy work like pulling weeds, cultivate the soil and many more. But even though it is hard it is still enjoyable especially if you are a nature lover. She include that in farming you need determination and passion because if you don’t have these two things in your mentality, probably all of your plants will surely die. In farming the word discouragement must be disregarded, even though the price of the plants are low, you must always give another try, don’t be easily discouraged with the situation.  You should always develop a positive mind set.

        According to her, a typical day for a farmer is waking up early in the morning, you must be already in your farm before the sunrise. At that time you should water your plants for them to grow and check if there are problems. When the weather is sunny or rainy you must not work because your health is also important, that’s what she said. In farming, problems are also inevitable, sometimes you cannot start gardening if you don’t have a capital. Another problem is the natural disaster like typhoons and the price of the plants are unstable, sometimes you are being bankrupt. For her the joy of farming is when you see your plants grow and when you share some of your gathered vegetables on your neighborhood. Another thing that makes a farmer happy is when the price of the vegetables is high in local term it is called “chamba”.

       She said that you must treat your plants like they are your children you must take care of them properly for them to grow. Every time you go the farm you must also talk to them, for her talking to plants are good because it is like a stress reliever. If you don’t exert extra effort probably your plants will grow but they cannot produce well. She told me that farming is one of the most important job because without farmers probably all people will die because of hunger. That’s why she doesn’t want to see people that are underestimating farming. You must always be proud that you are a farmer because you are the one who produce foods of every table in the world.

MRS. Gemma Kalinggan with her husband in their farm at Baw-ek, Taloy Sur, Tuba, Benguet