When Husbands and Ustads Learn Side by Side: A Regenerative Agriculture Session with the Gadungan SSB and Ummahat Mu'minats Agriculture Cooperative

AGREA Foundation and WFP convened the Gadungan SSB and Ummahat Mu'minats Agriculture Cooperative in Sultan sa Barongis for a session attended by women, their farmer husbands, and ustads.

The composition of the room

Most agricultural trainings are designed for a single kind of participant. This one had three.

AGREA Foundation conducted a Regenerative Agriculture session with the Gadungan SSB and Ummahat Mu'minats Agriculture Cooperative in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. According to AGREA's account, the women members were joined by their husbands — many of them farmers in their own right, who stayed open, interested, and committed to learning practices that could complement what they already know — and by ustads, Arabic teachers active in their communities, who took part throughout the learning activities, from field layout to the preparation of organic concoctions.

The composition is not a footnote to the session. It determines what the session could accomplish.

A training attended only by women can teach women. A training attended by women, their husbands, and the people a community looks to for guidance creates the possibility that what is learned is treated as a shared undertaking rather than a private project. Whether that possibility is realised depends on what happens after the session ends. But the room was arranged in a way that made it conceivable.

The timing gives the session a wider frame. The United Nations has declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer, with FAO coordinating the observance alongside IFAD and WFP, and with a stated aim of raising awareness of women's roles across agrifood systems and the structural barriers they face, including land tenure. FAO's theme for the year is "Empowered women, transforming agrifood systems".

A session on raised beds and fermented plant juice is a small thing against that agenda. But the year's ambitions are realised, or not, at the level of a staked plot and a labelled jar — and at the level of who is in the room when the plot is staked.

What the cooperative is

The cooperative is documented in the Bangsamoro Government's own records under a slightly longer name: the Gadungan SSB and Ummahat Mu'minats Agriculture Cooperative in Sultan sa Barongis, Maguindanao del Sur.

On July 17, 2025, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Agrarian Reform distributed 65 goats to five farmer cooperatives across Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, and the Special Geographic Area. This cooperative was among the recipients, and it also received two rolls of netting to establish protective enclosures for its livestock. The recipient cooperatives committed to raising and breeding the goats to ensure continued benefits for their members.

That record matters for how the session should be read. This is not a newly formed group receiving its first exposure to agricultural support. It is an established cooperative that has already accessed government livelihood assistance and accepted the obligations that come with it — raising the animals, maintaining the enclosures, reporting on the grant.

Sultan sa Barongis is a municipality in Maguindanao del Sur long affected by flooding and armed conflict. A cooperative based there, documented in separate reporting, is described as having chosen "to break the cycle of violence" by rewriting its members' paths through agricultural and entrepreneurial work. That is the environment in which this cooperative operates: a place where farming is not only an economic activity but a form of continuity.

The name carries its own history. Ummahat refers to a grassroots network of women and mothers within Moro Islamic Liberation Front communities, and many members of Bangsamoro women's organisations belong both to Ummahat and to the Social Welfare Committee, the official women's wing of the MILF Central Committee. A cooperative bearing that name is not a generic farmers' group with women included. It is an organisation rooted in a specific social and political history.

Why the ustads' presence matters

In Muslim communities in Mindanao, religious teachers are not peripheral figures. They shape norms, mediate disputes, and carry an authority that no programme can manufacture.

The Bangsamoro Government's own reporting on Islamic Studies and Arabic Language (ISAL) teachers describes their work in terms that make the point. ISAL teachers bring Islamic education and Arabic instruction into public school classrooms, allowing students to learn about their faith and culture alongside their regular academic subjects, and for many of them "teaching is also a way of passing on the values and traditions they grew up with".

Ustadz Munshimar Nasarani, a high school ISAL teacher in Sulu, put the distinction plainly: "Regular teachers build our careers for the present world, while ISAL teachers build our souls for the hereafter". He also described the programme's reach in terms that matter for a farming community: "By integrating Islamic values education directly into public schools, the ISAL program ensures that the spirit of Islam reaches the youth right where they spend their school days".

That framing is directly relevant to an agricultural session. Decisions about what a household plants, whether crop residue is burned or composted, how water is managed, and whether a farm diversifies away from a single crop are not purely technical. They are shaped by what is considered proper, customary, and endorsed by people the community respects. An ustad who has sat through a session on field layout and fermentation is an ustad who can speak about those practices from familiarity rather than secondhand report.

The article does not claim that the ustads endorsed any specific practice, issued guidance, or made commitments. AGREA's account describes them as taking part throughout the learning activities. That is participation, and it is the precondition for anything further.

Field layout, land preparation, and where the water goes

The first hands-on component was field layout and land preparation. According to AGREA's account, the husbands did not observe from the sidelines: they helped measure and plan the field, prepared the land and raised beds, and worked alongside the women.

The design principles involved are documented. Published guidance on vegetable production describes low raised beds constructed with footpaths between each bed, providing access to the crop plants and adequate drainage, with typical dimensions of about one metre wide and ten centimetres high, and higher beds of thirty centimetres for eggplant. On the farms studied, that raised bed and footpath layout "provides adequate drainage during heavy rainstorms, the excess water running off along the footpaths between the beds and into drainage channels or farm sumps".

The logic is simple and consequential. A bed about a metre across can be reached from both sides without stepping on it, which prevents the soil compaction that comes from walking on beds. A path between beds carries foot traffic and, when the soil is heavy or the ground slopes, carries excess water away. A bed that drains is a bed where a crop does not rot after heavy rain. A path that channels water is a path that does not become a trench.

Crop spacing was part of the same lesson. Published Philippine extension guidance gives the range — 75 centimetres to one metre between rows and 25 to 50 centimetres between hills, depending on the kind or variety of vegetable, with narrower spacing of 60 centimetres between rows and 25 to 40 centimetres between hills for other crops. The differences reflect the size of the mature plant, its root spread, and the light and airflow it needs. Spacing determines humidity in the canopy and therefore disease pressure, whether a farmer can walk the plot to weed and harvest, and how many plants a given area can support.

Four crop groups and the reason for rotation

The session also introduced crop rotation through the division of the field into four crop categories: legumes, root crops, leafy vegetables, and fruit-bearing crops.

That division follows established guidance. Benguet State University's farm planning technoguide recommends planting four categories of vegetables in a bed — leafy, root, legume, and fruit — with each category planted in a different subdivision every season. The same guide classifies crops by fertiliser demand, identifying legumes as "giver crops," cabbage as a "user crop," and corn as a "heavy user crop". It also notes that the categories have varying root depths and therefore extract nutrients from different regions of the soil profile.

The rotation is a framework rather than a fixed rule. Published accounts of Philippine vegetable farms note that rotation patterns vary according to soil conditions, market demand, and labour availability, and that even where the same crop is not planted continuously in the same bed, growers may plant one crop several times in succession before rotating.

Concoctions: inputs from materials already at hand

The third component was the preparation of organic concoctions. AGREA's account describes the women and their husbands working side by side to produce natural farm inputs, and it describes the ustads participating in this part of the session as well.

The brief does not itemise which preparations were made. What can be said with confidence is what the standard set contains. The Department of Agriculture's Natural Farming Technology System documents eight bio-organic inputs: Indigenous Micro-Organism, Fermented Plant Juice, Fermented Fruit Juice, Fermented Fish Amino Acid, Oriental Herbal Nutrient, Calcium Phosphate, Lactic Acid Bacteria Serum, and a Natural Insect Attractant.

Two are worth describing in detail because their formulations are published and specific.

Fermented Plant Juice is made from plant tops or shoots — one kilogram of chopped material with half a kilogram of muscovado sugar or molasses, fermented for about fourteen days, then applied at roughly two tablespoons per litre of water. It is used as a foliar or drench fertiliser to support vegetative growth.

Oriental Herbal Nutrient is more involved. The Department of Agriculture's formulation uses one kilogram each of ginger and garlic with 400 grams of molasses and 2.4 litres of coconut vinegar for the first extraction, fermented for ten days; a second and third extraction add 200 grams of chili and 100 grams of makabuhay. The documented benefits are control of pests, worms, and fungus, support for skin health in hogs and other animals, and contribution to soil and plant condition. The recommended application is two tablespoons per litre of water, sprayed on leaves or poured at the base of the plant, in the early morning or late afternoon].

A 2025 study conducted in Maguindanao del Sur compared several plant concoctions as foliar sprays on lettuce and found that Oriental Herbal Nutrient outperformed the others across plant height, leaf development, and marketable weight, concluding it was the best of the preparations tested for that crop in a greenhouse setting [16†L10-L31]. That is a single study on a single crop under controlled conditions, not a general verdict. But it is local evidence, generated in the same province, that the practice has measurable effects worth investigating.

The economic logic is what makes these preparations relevant to a women's cooperative. A farmer who buys synthetic fertiliser and pesticide every season must find the cash before the harvest arrives. A farmer who can produce inputs from materials already at hand — vegetable trimmings, overripe fruit, ginger, garlic, chili, makabuhay — has reduced that cash requirement. She has also reduced her exposure to price movements in external inputs, which in BARMM in early 2026 meant diesel rising by as much as ₱11.88 per litre and gasoline by ₱6.47 per litre in March alone.

Why this matters now

The session's emphasis on field planning and locally produced inputs is not happening in a neutral season.

On May 14, 2026, Chief Minister Abdulraof Macacua placed the entire Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao under a state of calamity under Proclamation No. 0002, Series of 2026, citing the combined impact of the global oil crisis and the El Niño phenomenon. The proclamation recorded an El Niño Alert in effect since April 22, 2026, with climate models projecting the phenomenon to continue until early 2027.

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.

In that context, a field laid out to drain and a farm that produces its own inputs from local materials are not stylistic preferences. They are practical measures that spread risk and reduce exposure to purchased inputs whose prices are set elsewhere. They do not make a farm immune to drought. They do reduce the number of ways a season can go wrong.

The partnership behind the session

The session 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.

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 it, rural and indigenous women undergo training in climate-resilient agriculture and leadership skills, women's cooperatives are strengthened by linking their agricultural production to reliable markets, and activities incorporate social behaviour change to improve local food and nutrition practices.

The rationale is stated directly in WFP's announcement. Violeta Dominguez Acosta, Head of Spanish Cooperation in the Philippines, said: "Despite significant progress at the global level, no country in the world has achieved gender equality. That is the reason why Spanish Cooperation aims to not only boost but also accelerate the progress of women's participation and leadership at all decision-making levels. If we are talking about climate resilience in a country most at risk of extreme climate, we must put indigenous women and their communities at the centre of the action".

WFP Philippines Representative and Country Director Regis Chapman added: "WFP thanks AECID for their important contribution to enhancing resilience in BARMM. With the increasing frequency and intensity of climate emergencies in the Philippines, women are especially vulnerable. It is urgent that we strengthen their capacities and so that they can withstand shocks better".

The project's diagnosis rests on WFP's 2024 Leaving No One Behind study, which found that barriers such as climate-related risks hinder rural and indigenous women from accessing resources and decision-making processes, resulting in the loss of livelihood opportunities and poverty

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What the session does and does not establish

A learning session is an input. It is not evidence that the cooperative has reorganised its fields, that it will maintain a four-part rotation, that the concoctions will be prepared correctly and applied at the right concentration, that yields will increase, or that the farms will withstand the next dry spell.

Those outcomes depend on follow-through: whether the layouts fit the land and water available, whether the rotation can be sustained when a household needs a particular crop at a particular time, whether the concoction materials remain accessible through the year, and whether the cooperative reinforces the practices in the months after the session.

The composition of this particular room creates a specific opportunity and a specific risk. The opportunity is that practices discussed in the presence of husbands and religious teachers are more likely to be treated as shared household and community matters rather than one person's private project. The risk is that the presence of respected figures is mistaken for agreement, and the session is reported as though consensus had been reached when what actually happened was that people listened and asked questions.

The honest measure is not the size of the group or the warmth of the closing remarks. It is what appears in the following season: a plot staked into four sections, beds that drain after heavy rain, jars of fermenting preparation labelled with dates on a shelf, and a field managed according to a plan rather than improvised.

What comes next

For the participants, the next steps are concrete: stake one plot into four sections before the next planting; record which crop group went where so the rotation can be repeated and adjusted; prepare one concoction, label it with the date, and observe the result on a small area before applying it widely; and check after the first heavy rain whether the pathways are carrying water away from the beds rather than into them.

For the cooperative, the next step is to decide whether these practices become shared activities — a communal demonstration plot, a shared production area for concoctions, a schedule for preparing inputs together — rather than individual habits. The cooperative already has experience of collective obligation from its livestock grant, where members committed to raising and breeding the animals for continued benefit. That is a foundation.

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 cooperative who measured the field and mixed the preparations; to their husbands who came as farmers rather than as companions; and to the ustads who spent the session listening, asking, and learning alongside them: agricultural knowledge travels through households and through the people a community trusts. The willingness to learn together is where that travel begins.

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.