Tabuk City in Kalinga province is the rice granary of the Cordillera region. To produce bumper crops of rice, the farmers use mostly high-yielding varieties (HYV) boosted by commercial agrochemical inputs that are indispensable to their production. In barangay Lacnog, small land owner-tillers, tenants, and farmworkers have no recourse but to apply expensive fertilizers and pesticides to sustain yields and to control pests and diseases. For tenants in medium and big farms, they have to follow what the owners want to plant and use on their lands. The landowner controls the overall production, which is mainly dependent on high external and chemical-based inputs, including extensive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

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