Friday, August 24, 2018

Learning Along the Way


August 23
We wanted to test our methodology in an area that's completely unknown to us. Good thing Dax Olfindo of Dream Agritech Consultancy recommended us to meet up with permaculture designer, Joana Tan who is planning to setup a potential permaculture site in Sulpoc, Tanauan.
As always, we discovered some minor glitches in our methodology. We also forgot to bring some materials. By the way, this is our sampling methodology for the inventory of biotic system components. For other system components such as abiotic, manmade, technological, cultural, and socio-economic, we will do a full inventory of the site or sites, depending on the extent of the design.

We're planning to do one more pre-test before we head out to our first site on August 31.
Music: Christian Bjoerklund - Hallon
Setting up sampling plots in a farm property in Tanauan (August 21)

August 21 (video)
We used PVC pipes, plastic straw, and rubber bands to create visible markers for our sampling plots.

Pre-test near the Fertility Tree (August 17)


August 17 (video)
We practiced identifying biotic components in two randomly sampled 25 sqm sampling plots in the garden area of the Agronomy building. The plot was then partitioned into 1 sqm quadrats to create a 5x5 matrix. The columns are labeled with a corresponding letter while the rows are labled with a number. A quadrat or cell is then located using the column-row address (parang spreadsheet sa MS Excel!).
In the actual data gathering in permaculture sites, a 1 ha (10,000 sqm) property will be divided into a quadrant with an area of 2500 sqm each. Ten 25 sqm plots will be randomly sampled from each quadrant and then partitioned into 1 sqm quadrats for the inventory of biotic components.
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Friday, August 17, 2018

Workshop and Pre-test at Tara Farms



August 16 - Pre-testing at Tara Farms

We made some changes to our methodology just in case there is no WiFi in the areas we visit. At Tara Farms, we made the main house (Zone 0) the reference point for the perimeter of the sampling area (1 hectare). Using a 50 meter measuring tape and some graphing paper, we measured 50 meters (N, S, E, W) from the main house and divided each quadrant into 5x5 meter plots (10x10 plots per quadrant). In the pre-test we tried doing a complete inventory of system components (biotic, abiotic, manmade, etc.) in 4 plots. So far, it took the two enumerators about 20 minutes per plot. In the actual fieldwork, we decided to do a random sampling of ten plots per quadrant.



 Also, we tried flying our new DJI Tello--thanks to our GoGetFunding donors!

Thanks to Paulo and Kuya Richard of Tara Farms for letting us practice in their site. We will be back in September!


August 14: Meet our wonderful team at Permaculture Research PH!
Jim Cano - drone operator (Agricultural Systems, UPLB)
Ara Bagunu - enumerator (Microbiology, UPLB)
Cid Mercado - enumerator (Entomology, UPLB)
Brian Sulicipan - documentary filmmaker (Film, UPD)
Seaver Choy - graduate student (Computer Science, DLSU)
Sherry Anne Gocheco - production assistant

Not in video: Jabez Flores - project leader (Environmental Science, UPLB)




August 14: Conducted another special permaculture workshop for the second batch of team members, congrats!
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Friday, August 10, 2018

Phase 2 Updates

From L-R: Sherry, Seaver, Jabez, Dada, and Brian

This week has been an eventful week for the team.

Last Monday (August 6) we conducted a special permaculture workshop (with emphasis on agroecosystems and food security) for the  team members at Cafe Antonio, Los Banos. We will have another workshop for other team members next Tuesday (August 14). The workshop covered topics such as: the state of the environment, defining agroecosystems, food security parameters, history of permaculture, ethics and principles, and design methods. Lessons from the workshop will help the team with data gathering on the field.



Last Thursday (August 9), the team's field enumerators got together to pre-test the data gathering methodology on a small permaculture garden. They did an inventory of trees, plants, crops, wildlife, man-made structures, technologies, cultural, and socio-economic system components as part of the ecological profiling method. We also went over the questionnaires for our rapid rural appraisal. We realized there's still a lot to improve on our methodology and we're figuring out how to include soil sampling in the process. Next week we will pre-test again in a 3-hectare farm in Bay, Laguna.


Twelve (12) sites have finally confirmed their participation in the research. The original plan was to study twenty (20) sites, but due to time and budget constraints (we only have 2 months for data gathering), we decided to limit the respondents to just twelve. We can probably sneak in a couple in November, especially if it's just in Luzon (i.e. we have contacts in Cavite and Aurora). Maybe after the National Permaculture Convergence in UPLB. Not to worry though, we have plans to continue the research even after the project ends next year. So hopefully, we can get good partners to support our work for years to come. It's not the end!

Our September to October schedule has been set and we're just finalizing trip details such as transportation and food and accommodation. Thank you once again for your cooperation and patience! We would also like to thank our donors from GoGetFunding.com for providing us with a revolving fund we can use for transportation, food, and meetings. We were also able to order some equipment (drone, soil and water pH meters, measuring tape, tripod) using your online and offline donations.




Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel! We have a couple of videos uploaded already. And also please like us on Facebook.

You can also support our crowdfund by creating a support campaign on GoGetFunding.



Thank you!
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