Smallholder Tree Growing in Philippine Back Yards: Homegarden Characteristics in Different Environmental Settings - Smallholder Tree Growing for Rural Development and Environmental Services - page 63

for the lowland villages where the function “to produce fuel wood” rated 1.6 to
1.9 on average. Homegarden trees (including bamboo) account for 10 to 30 per-
cent of the total fuelwood utilized by households in these villages, as opposed to
less then 10 percent for the hilly lowlands and uplands. In the latter case, most
fuelwood is gathered on farms (e.g., ipil ipil or Leucena leucocephala ), in exten-
sive grasslands (guava or Psidium guajava ) or in forest patches along creeks and
steep slope sections (e.g., arosip or Antidesma pentandra ). In Malibabag and
Moldero, households make use of a variety of fuel sources: in addition to wood
from homegardens, farms and forest patches, wood washed ashore on river banks
during and after typhoon events, corn cobs and tobacco roots from farms and fuel
wood purchased at local markets are used. The wood collected after a typhoon
event is partly converted to charcoal by river-side operations, lasting a couple of
months as local fuel source. In Malibabag, liquid gas (shellin) is used during the
wet season (for about 2 months) and also serves emergency purposes.
The production of fodder crops is not a crucial homegarden function. Yet in Dy
Abra, and partly in Baliuag, natural grass and “wild” herbal species covering much
of the space around houses are fed to goats and carabao and also used for medicinal
purposes. Some of the wild species are harvested for food, like amaranth and bush
okra, the consumption of which is more popular in the rainy season when the shoots
are soft. In other villages, some tuber crops Alocasia macrorrhiza (galayang) and
Ipomoea batatas (kamote) are planted to serve a dual purpose, with the leaf tops
being fed to pigs on a regular basis but at times of food shortage also eaten by
households. Kitchen waste and garden residues like rotten fruits (mango, coconut,
banana) are likewise fed to livestock but most feed is derived from the residues of
crops grown on farms such as rice drag, corn peelings and milled corn. Carabao,
cow and goat are further penned along roadsides to feed on grasses or brought to
harvested fields to feed on crop residues.
Finally in 40 percent of the Malibabag gardens, additional houses have been
built leaving less space for food crop cultivation; in 40 percent of the Moldero gar-
dens, areas reserved for vegetable cultivation are temporarily (three months) cleared
for tobacco drying during the dry season.

2.6 Is There Potential for Diversification

and Higher Production?

Species richness, totaling 155 tree and non-tree crop species, is less than two-third
of all species reported by Soemarwoto (1987) for homegardens on West Java.
Likewise, the average number of species per homegarden (i.e., 24) is less than half
of the record for West Javanese homegardens (i.e., 56; Table 2.1). Higher species
numbers are also reported for homegardens elsewhere in Asia (Black et al. 1996;
Gajaseni and Gajaseni 1999; Kehlenbeck and Maass 2004; Peyre et al. 2006; Table 2.1),
suggesting there is potential for enhancement of species diversity to augment
multiple uses of the homegardens under study. Likewise tree densities are not
exceptionally high, with average densities ranging from 220 to 409 trees per