Hands-On in Del Carmen: Nursery Management and Soil Testing Put Regenerative Agriculture into Practice

On Day 2 of a regenerative agriculture training in Del Carmen, Siargao, farmers collected soil samples, planted seedlings, and learned nursery management techniques.

What the second day looked like

The second day of Para sa Isla: Capacity Building on Regenerative Agriculture and Organizational Development did not begin with a lecture. It began with bags of soil, potting media, and seedlings.

Participants moved through two hands-on stations. At one, Ms. Serica Joy C. Dadios of the Visayas State University (VSU) Institute of Tropical Ecology and Environmental Science guided farmers through proper tree nursery management techniques. At the other, Dr. Mark Anthony M. Barbadillo of the VSU Department of Soil Science demonstrated soil sampling and testing methods. Farmers collected soil samples, filled potting bags with seedlings, watered them, and placed them in shaded areas, practising both nursery care and soil assessment in the same session.

The training was the first leg of VSU’s iCARE Philippines, delivered in partnership with iLAJA Siargao and AGREA-Siargao, and convened in Del Carmen on June 19, 2026. Around 80 farmers from the municipality took part, following Day 1’s lecture sessions on soil and water conservation, integrated nutrient management, and nursery and agroforestry systems.

Why the hands-on half matters

Regenerative agriculture is often described as a set of principles: keep the soil covered, minimise disturbance, diversify species, integrate livestock, maintain living roots. Those principles are easy to state and harder to apply, because applying them requires judgment that varies from one plot to the next. How much organic matter does a particular soil need? When should a seedling be potted up? How deep should a sample be taken to represent a field? How should a nursery be shaded so that seedlings harden off rather than stretch?

Those are not questions answered by a slide. They are answered by doing the task with someone experienced correcting your technique. The second day was structured around that reality. The session moved from explanation to practice in the same space, with the facilitators present to observe and adjust.

Nursery management, in the context of Siargao’s farms

Tree nurseries are not a marginal activity on Siargao. The island’s agricultural landscape is dominated by coconut—more than 34,000 hectares, roughly 55 percent of the island’s land area, with 17,971 registered coconut farmers. Many of those farms are aging, and many are vulnerable to the typhoons that pass through the region with increasing regularity.

A well-managed nursery is one of the practical answers to that vulnerability. It allows farmers to produce their own planting material rather than buying it, to select species that suit their soil and slope, and to time planting to the rains. It also supports diversification. A farmer who can raise seedlings of fruit trees, timber species, or nitrogen-fixing trees has options beyond copra, options that agroforestry systems depend on.

The session did not treat nursery management as a standalone skill. It was taught alongside agroforestry on Day 1, and it was practised on Day 2 with the same facilitator who introduced the systems. The connection is deliberate: a nursery is only useful if the species it produces belong in the system the farmer is trying to build.

Soil sampling and testing: replacing guesswork with information

Soil sampling and testing is the least visible and most consequential skill in the package. A farmer who guesses at soil fertility will usually guess in one of two directions: apply too little and lose yield, or apply too much and waste money while risking runoff and nutrient imbalance.

Dr. Barbadillo’s session introduced participants to the mechanics of taking a representative sample—how to move through a field, how many sub-samples to combine, what depth to work at, how to handle and label the sample so that the result means something. The participants practised the collection themselves.

The value of that skill is not abstract. Del Carmen’s farmers are being asked, through the broader circular economy agenda, to think about organic waste as an input rather than a disposal problem. Compost, vermicast, and other organic amendments are only useful if they are matched to what the soil actually lacks. A soil test is what turns “add organic matter” from a slogan into a decision.

The wider frame: Green LGUs and circular economy

The training sits within the EU-Philippines Green Economy Partnership, a programme funded by a €60 million (approximately ₱3.67 billion) grant from the European Union under its Global Gateway initiative, running from 2023 to 2028. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources is the lead implementing agency, working with the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department of Energy.

Specific Objective 2, Green LGUs, is implemented by UNDP Philippines and focuses on enhancing circular economy practices among local governments in collaboration with the private sector and civil society, with attention to youth and gender equality. Del Carmen is one of the first ten local government units in the programme, alongside Baguio, Pasig, Quezon City, Caloocan, Iloilo, Ormoc, Davao, Puerto Princesa, and the Island Garden City of Samal.

Within that framework, AGREA Foundation works with iLAJA and the Municipality of Del Carmen through the Para Sa Isla initiative, supporting People’s Organizations in transforming local resources into sustainable products. The regenerative agriculture training is one expression of that work on the production side: it addresses how farmers manage soil, water, and planting material, which in turn shapes how much organic waste is generated, how much external input is needed, and how resilient the farm system is to shocks.

Del Carmen’s own record provides the context. The municipality has reduced unmanaged waste by 25 percent over recent years, and its ecotourism model anchored in mangrove protection has been associated with a rise in average family income and a reduction in poverty incidence from 69 percent in 2010 to 21 percent by 2024. Those outcomes were not produced by a single training. They were produced by a municipal government that has been willing to align policy, partnerships, and practice over time. The training contributes to that alignment at the farm level.

What the day did not claim

A two-day training does not change farming systems. It introduces practices, builds familiarity, and gives participants a chance to try techniques under supervision. Whether those techniques are adopted and whether adoption improves yields, reduces costs, or strengthens soil, depends on what happens in the seasons that follow.

The training also did not produce a soil fertility map of Del Carmen, or a nursery that will supply the municipality’s planting material next year. It produced something more modest and more necessary: farmers who have taken a soil sample themselves, filled a potting bag themselves, and seen what correct technique looks like when someone experienced is watching.

The work after the workshop

For the farmers who attended, the next steps are specific. Take the sampling method back to your own plot and use it before the next planting season. Pot up seedlings you actually intend to plant. Shade them correctly. Keep records of what you did and what happened.

For the convenors—VSU, iLAJA, AGREA, and the Municipality of Del Carmen, the next step is follow-through. A first leg of an extension programme is a test of whether the model can be sustained beyond a single visit. The farmers who participated will need support in the months when the practices either work or fail.

We are glad to have been part of convening this training alongside iLAJA Siargao, the VSU Extension Office, and the Municipality of Del Carmen. The learning that matters most is the kind that happens on the farm, after the bags of soil have been put away.

To learn more about AGREA Foundation’s work on regenerative agriculture and circular economy livelihoods in Siargao, explore our official channels. Organizations and local governments interested in the Para Sa Isla initiative or the Green LGUs programme can reach out through our contact page.