Success Story: Johnny Silva - Profile of an Innovative Cocoa Farmer in the Philippines
Mr. Johnny Silva, 36, is a cocoa and fruit farmer in Davao. In 2005, he and his wife Joy inherited a half hectare farm from Mrs. Silva’s family. The farm had been planted with cocoa, coconut, lansones, rambutan and durian in 1997.
To learn how to better manage his farm, Mr. Silva joined a Farmer Field School in June 2007 and will graduate in May 2008. Shortly after his training began, he started to implement the new techniques on his farm.
He uses pod sleeves to protect the cocoa pods from the damaging cocoa pod borer pest, and is grafting two clonal varieties onto his existing trees in order to improve their yields.
Although Mr. Silva’s farm was already diversified with several varieties of fruit trees, he decided to further diversify by planting vegetables. The vegetables will improve food security for his family, while also serves as a source of extra income.
Mr. Silva is an enthusiastic participant in the Farmer Field School and is interested in helping his neighbors as well as contributing to research that will impact farmers throughout the Philippines.
Working with his training facilitator and the Cocoa Foundation of the Philippines field technician, he identified high performing trees on his farm. These trees have been designated “JS 001” (meaning Johnny Silva selection 1) and were selected for further study. The data collected will be shared with the cocoa breeding program at the University of Southern Mindanao.
Mr. Silva is propagating seedlings for use on his own farm and to help neighboring farmers with new planting.
Recently, he began participating in a research study to test the effectiveness of using trichocards to trap cocoa pod borer.
He looks forward to improving his fermentation boxes and building a solar dryer.
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