Enlist nature in fight versus dengue
WHERE are the dragon flies, spiders, frogs, bats that used to abound in Iloilo in our childhood? They are gone now. Or so it seems.
By childhood, I am referring to the era of "young once" of media veterans of Iloilo like Herbert V, Pidro J and yours truly, of the '50s, '60s and '70s. And even '80s.
Chemical-dependent farming system obliterated them. Other human activities misnamed "development" deprived them of their habitat and the conditions necessary for their survival.
Seeking their whereabouts today is as urgent as seeking and destroying breeding places of diseases-carrying mosquitoes, particularly, Aedes egyptii and Aedes albopictus, two strains that spread the virus that causes dengue hemorrhagic fever, or simply, dengue.
Chemical inputs might have raised farm production but the downside is it engendered problems like the decimation of natural predators that control pests.
Before chemical farming, rice planting season was not really a period of want, or tigkiriwi in Kinaray-a and Hiligaynon. The paddies had food to offer -- bullfrogs, snails (puul), and various fishes -- to tide over the family for their daily food.
Mosquitoes and flies that pestered humans and animals, and those that destroyed crops -- leaf hoppers, stem-borers, weevils, etc. -- were kept in check by dragon flies, spiders, small birds, and bats.
Ditches and drainage canals had gobies, even snake-head fish (haruan) to feast on mosquito larvae.
Unfortunately, government has a dual personality in its agricultural program. Its pair of hands simply don't know that the other is doing. One acts as panderer, sales-agent-in-chief for multi-national agri-chem giants. This pandering arm is the stronger one than the other that promotes earth-friendly practices.
Since the '90s, government agriculturists embarked on earth-friendly farming practices like integrated pest management (IPM) that limits dependence on chemical inputs e.g., mechanical control that uses traps for instance, and biological control or employing natural predators like spiders, fallowing, and crop rotation.
As always the case, it's the sales agents disguised as government agriculturists that prevail. They are all over the place: promoting chemicals, mono-cropping with the use of herbicides including the genre recycled from Agent Orange that American invading troops used to defoliate jungles and farms in Vietnam in 1965-1975.
A giant spider, "udto-udto" can trap more than 100 insects with its web of about a square meter spread the whole day.
A dragon fly is a deadly hunter that captures and eats 90 percent of its targets in ambush or air borne. That's more efficient than the king of jungles, the lion that misses 50% of its intended prey. (http://www.naturallynorthidaho.com/2014/08/dragonflies-most-successful-predator-in.htm).
The Department of Health in a radio report this morning places the Philippines under a "state of dengue outbreak" pointing to Iloilo having the worst record of affliction. Data from the Iloilo provincial health office places the dengue prevalence 4,306 cases with 20 deaths, January through June.
The same office reports three more dead in the first half of July, making the death toll to 23.
The 12 hospitals run by Iloilo, qualified as one "provincial" and 11 "district" is spilling with patients, beyond their total capacities for 615 beds.
Gov. Arthur R. Defensor, Jr. reported that private rooms in these hospitals already become wards, and patients are now occupying corridors, chapels and conference chambers of these health facilities.
"If the outbreak continued, we are ready to install tents with additional folding beds on hospital grounds," he added.
The rat race of controlling dengue and hunting down breeding places carrying the virus is an urgency. Lives have to be saved.
We just forget to enlist nature in the fight against the disease. When do we realize that chemical-dependent farming, the super-profits of giant agri-chems and their local agents, can never compensate for the loss of loved ones?(30)
By childhood, I am referring to the era of "young once" of media veterans of Iloilo like Herbert V, Pidro J and yours truly, of the '50s, '60s and '70s. And even '80s.
Chemical-dependent farming system obliterated them. Other human activities misnamed "development" deprived them of their habitat and the conditions necessary for their survival.
Seeking their whereabouts today is as urgent as seeking and destroying breeding places of diseases-carrying mosquitoes, particularly, Aedes egyptii and Aedes albopictus, two strains that spread the virus that causes dengue hemorrhagic fever, or simply, dengue.
Chemical inputs might have raised farm production but the downside is it engendered problems like the decimation of natural predators that control pests.
Before chemical farming, rice planting season was not really a period of want, or tigkiriwi in Kinaray-a and Hiligaynon. The paddies had food to offer -- bullfrogs, snails (puul), and various fishes -- to tide over the family for their daily food.
Mosquitoes and flies that pestered humans and animals, and those that destroyed crops -- leaf hoppers, stem-borers, weevils, etc. -- were kept in check by dragon flies, spiders, small birds, and bats.
Ditches and drainage canals had gobies, even snake-head fish (haruan) to feast on mosquito larvae.
Unfortunately, government has a dual personality in its agricultural program. Its pair of hands simply don't know that the other is doing. One acts as panderer, sales-agent-in-chief for multi-national agri-chem giants. This pandering arm is the stronger one than the other that promotes earth-friendly practices.
Since the '90s, government agriculturists embarked on earth-friendly farming practices like integrated pest management (IPM) that limits dependence on chemical inputs e.g., mechanical control that uses traps for instance, and biological control or employing natural predators like spiders, fallowing, and crop rotation.
As always the case, it's the sales agents disguised as government agriculturists that prevail. They are all over the place: promoting chemicals, mono-cropping with the use of herbicides including the genre recycled from Agent Orange that American invading troops used to defoliate jungles and farms in Vietnam in 1965-1975.
A giant spider, "udto-udto" can trap more than 100 insects with its web of about a square meter spread the whole day.
A dragon fly is a deadly hunter that captures and eats 90 percent of its targets in ambush or air borne. That's more efficient than the king of jungles, the lion that misses 50% of its intended prey. (http://www.naturallynorthidaho.com/2014/08/dragonflies-most-successful-predator-in.htm).
The Department of Health in a radio report this morning places the Philippines under a "state of dengue outbreak" pointing to Iloilo having the worst record of affliction. Data from the Iloilo provincial health office places the dengue prevalence 4,306 cases with 20 deaths, January through June.
The same office reports three more dead in the first half of July, making the death toll to 23.
The 12 hospitals run by Iloilo, qualified as one "provincial" and 11 "district" is spilling with patients, beyond their total capacities for 615 beds.
Gov. Arthur R. Defensor, Jr. reported that private rooms in these hospitals already become wards, and patients are now occupying corridors, chapels and conference chambers of these health facilities.
"If the outbreak continued, we are ready to install tents with additional folding beds on hospital grounds," he added.
The rat race of controlling dengue and hunting down breeding places carrying the virus is an urgency. Lives have to be saved.
We just forget to enlist nature in the fight against the disease. When do we realize that chemical-dependent farming, the super-profits of giant agri-chems and their local agents, can never compensate for the loss of loved ones?(30)
This applies to in the fight vs COVID-19
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