From Measuring Tape to Concoction: A Regenerative Agriculture Session with the Bugasan Sur Kalimudan O'Bae Association

AGREA Foundation and WFP convened the Bugasan Sur Kalimudan O'Bae Association for a hands-on session on field measurement, layout, and locally made organic concoctions in Maguindanao del Norte.

The moment the demonstration became theirs

A hands-on demonstration on field measurement and layout is, by design, a temporary arrangement. The trainer holds the tape or the A-frame. The participants watch. Then the session ends, and everyone goes home.

What happened at Bugasan Sur was different. According to AGREA's account of the Regenerative Agriculture Learning Session with the Bugasan Sur Kalimudan O'Bae Association, the women did not wait to be invited. After the demonstration, they took the lead—measuring their own farm area, organising the space, and applying proper field planning themselves.

That shift, from watching to doing, is the point of a hands-on session. It is also the difference between a technique that stays in a training venue and one that reaches a field.

The session was held in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, with the association based in Bugasan Sur, a barangay of Matanog in Maguindanao del Norte. It is part of the continuing collaboration between AGREA Foundation and the World Food Programme, under a project funded by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation.

Where the session took place

Bugasan Sur is one of the barangays of Matanog, a municipality on the coast of Maguindanao del Norte with a population of roughly 7,700 in Bugasan Sur alone as of the 2020 Census. Matanog is home largely to Iranun communities, and its economy rests on farming and fishing.

That context matters for what a session on field layout and farm inputs can accomplish. Vegetable farming is not a side activity in these households. It is a source of daily food and, for many women, a source of income. A session that improves how a field is organised and how inputs are produced is a session about the economics of a household, not only about agronomy.

The women who participated are described in AGREA's account as showing unity, active participation, and teamwork from start to finish. That description is not decoration. It is the condition under which a collective demonstration becomes a collective practice.

Field measurement and layout: why the tape matters

The first hands-on component was field measurement and layout—the work of determining the dimensions of a plot, deciding where beds and paths will go, and planning the space before anything is planted.

The case for doing this deliberately is straightforward. A field that is laid out without measurement tends to waste space on paths that are wider than necessary, crowd crops that need airflow, and place water-intensive plants where drainage is poor. A field that is measured and planned can be planted more densely, walked more easily, and managed with less wasted labour.

The A-frame, a tool commonly used in Philippine upland farming, is the instrument most closely associated with this work. It is built from three poles lashed into the shape of the letter A, with a carpenter's level fixed to the crossbar. A farmer sets one leg down, swings the other until the bubble sits level, and marks the ground. By repeating the process, she traces a contour line—a line of equal elevation across a slope.

Contour lines are the basis for soil conservation. Rows planted along them are level, so water slows as it moves across the field rather than accelerating downhill. Slower water drops its load of topsoil instead of carrying it away. Grass and shrubs left along the contour become natural vegetative strips, filtering runoff and building a terrace over time.

For the women of Bugasan Sur, the practical outcome was immediate: they measured their own farm area, organised the space, and applied the planning themselves. That is a small thing that changes how a season is managed.

Organic concoctions: making inputs from what is already there

The second hands-on component was the preparation of organic concoctions—natural farm inputs made from locally available materials.

This is a well-established practice in Philippine organic agriculture. The standard preparations include Indigenous Microorganisms (IMO), which culture beneficial microbes from forest litter or bamboo groves; Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ), made by fermenting plant materials with sugar; Fermented Fruit Juice (FFJ), made from ripe fruit; and Fermented Fish Amino Acid (FAA), made from fish waste and molasses. The materials are cheap, the equipment is basic—a jar, a basin, muscovado sugar, clean water—and the procedures are simple enough to be taught in a day.

The economic logic is what makes the practice relevant to a women's association. A farmer who buys synthetic fertiliser and pesticide every season must find the cash to do so before the harvest arrives. A farmer who can produce her own inputs from materials already on the farm has reduced that cash requirement. She has also reduced her exposure to price increases in external inputs—a real concern in a region where fuel prices rose sharply in early 2026.

The environmental logic is complementary. Concoctions made from farm waste and local plants recycle nutrients rather than importing them. They reduce the risk of chemical runoff. And they depend on knowledge that is already present in farming communities, even if it has been displaced by decades of promotion for purchased inputs.

According to AGREA's account, the women worked together to produce the concoctions and showed excitement about using them in their own fields. That enthusiasm is understandable. A technique that requires no purchase and produces something visible by the end of the day is a technique that can be tried immediately.

Tradition and adaptation, not replacement

The framing AGREA used for this session is worth stating plainly: the women embraced new approaches not to replace what they already know, but to strengthen their existing practices.

That distinction is not rhetorical. In agricultural development, new techniques are often introduced as corrections—as though what farmers have been doing is simply wrong. The result is predictable resistance, or compliance without adoption. A session that begins by recognising existing knowledge, and then adds a tool or a method that makes that knowledge more effective, starts from a different place.

Field measurement does not replace a farmer's judgment about her own land. It gives her a way to record and replicate what she already sees. Organic concoctions do not replace the practice of returning crop residue to the soil. They give it a faster, more concentrated form. Seed saving, when it is included in these sessions, does not replace the habit of keeping back seed from the best plants. It gives that habit a structure.

The women of Bugasan Sur, according to AGREA's account, are showing that farming can evolve without losing the knowledge that has sustained their community. That is the claim the session was designed to test—not in a lecture, but in a field.

The partnership and the climate context

The session is part of the continuing collaboration between AGREA Foundation and WFP, under a project whose full title is Empowering Indigenous Women through Nutrition-sensitive Interventions and Agriculture Livelihoods Support towards Improved Food and Nutrition Security and Climate Resilience.

WFP describes the project as a PHP 45 million (US$780,000) contribution from AECID to enhance agriculture-related livelihoods and boost the climate resilience of Indigenous women in BARMM, reaching 28,000 people from Indigenous and rural communities. Under the project, rural and Indigenous women undergo training in climate-resilient agriculture and leadership skills, women's cooperatives are strengthened by linking production to reliable markets, and activities incorporate social behaviour change to improve local food and nutrition practices.

The climate context is not hypothetical. On May 14, 2026, Chief Minister Abdulraof Macacua placed the entire BARMM under a state of calamity under Proclamation No. 0002, Series of 2026, citing the combined impact of the global oil crisis and El Niño. According to MAFAR Minister Abunawas Maslamama, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation had already affected around 800 rice and corn farmers in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte. As of April 24, about 851 hectares of farmland across 36 municipalities and 167 barangays were damaged—537 hectares of rice and 314 hectares of corn—with losses of roughly 1,500 metric tons. The proclamation noted that climate models projected El Niño conditions to continue until early 2027.

In that context, a field that is measured and laid out along contours, and a farm that produces its own inputs from local materials, are not stylistic preferences. They are practical measures that reduce exposure to purchased inputs and to soil loss during heavy rain—two risks that a dry spell followed by a wet season makes more acute.

What the session does and does not establish

A learning session is an input. It is not evidence that the women have reorganised their fields, that they will use the concoctions they prepared, that yields will increase, or that their farms will withstand the next dry spell.

Those outcomes depend on follow-through: whether the layouts fit the land available, whether the concoctions are prepared correctly and applied at the right concentration, whether the materials remain accessible, and whether the association reinforces the practices in the months after the session.

The honest measure of the training is not the enthusiasm in the room. It is what appears in the following season: stakes marking a measured plot, jars of fermenting concoction on a shelf, and a field that is planted according to a plan rather than improvised.

What comes next

For the participants, the immediate next steps are concrete: measure and stake one plot before the next planting; try one concoction on a small area and observe the result; keep a simple record of what was applied and when.

For the association, the next step is to decide whether these practices become shared activities—a communal plot laid out by the group, a shared production area for concoctions, a schedule for preparing inputs together—rather than individual habits.

For AGREA Foundation and WFP, the next step is to continue the collaboration and to track whether the sessions contribute to changes in practice. That tracking should be honest about what changes and what does not.

A note of appreciation

To the women of the Bugasan Sur Kalimudan O'Bae Association who participated: the willingness to measure your own land, to mix your own inputs, and to work together in the doing is what turns a demonstration into a practice. Everyone participated, everyone contributed, and everyone learned. That is not a small thing to say about a training session.

To learn more about AGREA Foundation's work with women farmers in BARMM and its partnership with the World Food Programme, explore our official channels. Organisations interested in supporting regenerative agriculture and nutrition programming can reach out through our contact page.