When Husbands Learn Beside Their Wives: A Regenerative Agriculture Session with the Macarpes Women's Association

AGREA Foundation and WFP convened the Macarpes Women's Association in BARMM for a hands-on session on field layout, land preparation, and organic concoctions—with the women's farmer husbands learning alongside them.

The shape of the room

Agricultural training sessions usually have a composition problem. They are attended by women, or by men, or by a mix in which one group dominates the discussion. The Macarpes session appears to have been arranged differently.

AGREA Foundation conducted a Regenerative Agriculture Learning Session with the women farmers of the Macarpes Women's Association in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. According to AGREA's account, the women showed strong interest, enthusiasm, and dedication throughout. Their husbands, who are also farmers, were equally engaged and eager to learn alongside them.

That arrangement is not incidental. A session in which women lead their own learning while their husbands participate as fellow learners—rather than as supervisors, gatekeepers, or absent partners—creates a different set of possibilities for what happens when everyone goes home. Whether those possibilities are realised depends on the months that follow. But the room was composed in a way that made them conceivable.

Where the session took place

The association is based in Matanog, a municipality on the coast of Maguindanao del Norte. Matanog is home largely to Iranun communities, and its economy rests on farming and fishing. Vegetable production is not a side activity in these households; it is a source of daily food and, for many women, a source of income.

The municipality has a documented history of agricultural training delivered through the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Agrarian Reform's Gender and Development Program. In August 2022, more than 40 farmers from Matanog and neighbouring Barira underwent training on vegetable production, receiving seeds and planting equipment afterward. One participant, Ayah Alih, expressed gratitude for the knowledge and the equipment that would ease her agricultural work. That record matters for how this session should be read: it is a continuation of a pattern of engagement, not a first contact.

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.

Field layout and land preparation: the work before the planting

The first hands-on component was field layout and land preparation—the work of determining where beds and paths will go, how much space each crop will occupy, and how the soil will be readied before anything is sown.

The women took an active role in measuring and organising their farm spaces and in understanding crop spacing. That detail matters more than it might appear. Crop spacing is not a cosmetic preference. It determines airflow between plants, which affects disease pressure; it determines how much light reaches lower leaves; it determines whether a farmer can walk through the plot to weed, water, and harvest without damaging the crop. A field that is laid out without measurement tends to waste space on paths that are wider than necessary and to crowd crops that need room.

The husbands worked alongside them on field measurement, layout, and land preparation, applying what they learned. According to AGREA's account, both groups put the lessons into practice rather than observing them.

The tools involved in this work are simple. A measuring tape, stakes, and string are enough to lay out a plot. On sloping land, an A-frame—three poles lashed into the shape of the letter A, with a carpenter's level fixed to the crossbar—is used to trace contour lines. The Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Training Institute describes the A-frame as an instrument to locate the contour lines of a field, and explains that plowing and planting along those lines can prevent soil erosion. The technique is standard in Philippine upland farming, and it requires no purchased equipment beyond a level.

Whether the Macarpes session used an A-frame is not stated in the brief. The article describes the tool as context for the field layout work, not as a confirmed element of this specific session.

Organic concoctions: making inputs from what is already there

The second hands-on component was the production of three natural farm inputs: Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ), Fermented Fruit Juice (FFJ), and Oriental Herbal Nutrient (OHN).

These are well-established preparations in Philippine organic agriculture. The Department of Science and Technology has documented their production and use in farmer trainings: FPJ is made from vegetable trimmings, FFJ from overripe fruits, and OHN from strong-scented and spicy plants such as lemongrass and ginger. DOST describes their functions in distinct terms: FPJ for plant growth and nutrient supply, FFJ for flowering and the initial bearing of fruits, and OHN to repel insects.

A horticultural study of organic vegetable production in Cagayan Valley lists the same inputs among the natural farming inputs produced and applied at different crop stages to prevent pests and diseases, alongside calcium amino acid and fish amino acid.

The economic logic is what makes these preparations 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 inputs from materials already on the farm—vegetable trimmings, overripe fruit, lemongrass, ginger—has reduced that cash requirement. She has also reduced her exposure to price increases in external inputs, a real concern in a region where diesel rose by as much as ₱11.88 per litre and gasoline by ₱6.47 per litre in March 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 and their husbands learned to produce all three preparations, described as natural farm inputs that complement their existing practices and help lessen reliance on commercially purchased synthetic inputs.

The climate context

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 BARMM 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 noted that climate models projected El Niño conditions 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 that is measured and laid out to make efficient use of space, 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 the risk of crop failure. They do not make a farm immune to drought. They do reduce the number of ways a season can go wrong.

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 composition of this particular room creates a specific opportunity. A practice discussed in the presence of both spouses, with the women leading the learning and the men participating as peers, is more likely to be treated as a shared household undertaking than as one person's project. That is the significance of the arrangement AGREA describes. It is not proof that the division of farm labour has changed. It is a condition under which it could.

The honest measure is not the enthusiasm in the room. It is what appears in the following season: a plot laid out to a plan, jars of fermenting concoction on a shelf, and a field that is managed by two people who learned the same thing at the same time.

What comes next

For the participants, the next steps are concrete: measure and stake one plot before the next planting; prepare one concoction and observe the result on a small area; 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 Macarpes Women's Association who participated, and to their husbands who came as farmers rather than as companions: the willingness to measure your own land, to mix your own inputs, and to learn side by side is what turns a demonstration into a practice. The children who will eat from those fields are the reason it matters.

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.