BACOLOD CITY — On the first morning of Terra Madre Asia Pacific Philippines, before the visitors streamed into the Indigenous Pavilion, Rennel Lavilla, a young Panay Bukidnon seed keeper from Capiz, knelt quietly over a woven mat and began arranging jars of heirloom upland rice. Malido, Kalutak, and other grains—each saved by hand, season after season—caught the soft morning light. Their colors ranged from pale amber to deep rust-red, the hues shaped by the mountain slopes that raised them and the memory of those who protected them long before he was born.
He lifted a jar of Malido, letting the grains fall through his fingers with a soft, familiar sound. When researchers approached him to ask for samples, he hesitated—not out of distrust, but out of fear. Once taken from their ancestral land, a seed could be altered, experimented on, or risk contamination from genetically modified crops. To him, a seed is not raw material. It is a story. A lineage. A living thread that ties the past to the future.
“This grows on the high slopes,” he said. “We plant it by hand. We save it by hand. It survives when the seasons turn strange.”
In that small gesture—protective, deliberate, rooted—Terra Madre Asia Pacific Philippines found its beating heart.
A Gathering at a Crossroads
Terra Madre began in Turin, Italy, in 2004 as Slow Food’s global gathering for communities defending food biodiversity. Today, it spans more than 160 countries, but hosting the first Asia Pacific edition in Negros Occidental was historic. The province has defined itself for nearly two decades as the Philippines’ organic agriculture capital.
Yet the event opened at a fragile moment. A proposed ordinance—which would allow GMO facilities into the province—was pending before the Sangguniang Panlalawigan. The measure had been set aside temporarily while the provincial government worked on the 2026 budget, but it remained alive in committee. For organic farmers, chefs, activists, and Indigenous groups, its existence was an existential threat.
Industry groups argued they needed GMO corn to reduce the cost of animal feed, which makes up as much as 70 percent of operational expenses. But farmers and advocates warned that even “regulated” GM entry would irreversibly alter the island’s biodiversity. Local autonomy allowed Negros to remain stricter than national biosafety rules; the proposed change, they said, risked collapsing a system built over 18 years.
By the time Terra Madre Asia Pacific Philippines opened on November 19, the debate had already seeped into the festival grounds.
Inside the Pavilion: Where Seeds Hold a Map of the World
The Indigenous Pavilion became one of the most compelling spaces in the entire festival. It felt less like an exhibition and more like a living archive—raw, intimate, and deeply rooted.
The Earthwalkers/Tau Temonok community displayed 36 upland rice varieties, each adapted to specific slopes, rains, and temperatures. Their seed systems were created not in laboratories but in the rhythms of observation, memory, and collective decision-making. Diversity was their insurance.
A few steps away, the Panay Bukidnon exhibit centered on the red aromatic Malido and the hardy Kalutak, along with other Bisaya highland grains rarely seen beyond their mountains. What made their presence profound wasn’t only the rice—it was the worldview behind it.
For the Panay Bukidnon, rice farming is cosmology.
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The Panay Bukidnon people possess a profound, centuries-old knowledge system for reading the land, weaving agriculture and cosmology into a single narrative. For these Indigenous farmers, the health of the harvest is dictated not just by human labor, but by subtle natural signs and the rhythm of the heavens.
They begin their agricultural cycle, the kaingin (shifting cultivation), only when they receive permission from the environment itself. The sharp, distinctive call of the limukun bird acts as a crucial omen, marking the right time to clear their fields.
Once the land is prepared, the planting process is guided by the moon’s celestial clock. Sowing (paminhi) of their upland rice varieties commences precisely during the full moon (), a time when they believe the powerful moonlight encourages the grains to grow fuller and more abundant. Conversely, when it comes time to plant their root crops, they wait for the new moon (), believing that this phase—when the sky is dark and the soil rests cool—provides the perfect, restorative conditions for tubers to thrive deep beneath the earth.
This reliance on observation, ritual, and astronomical timing transforms their farming from a simple economic task into a sacred and scientific contract with the natural world.
These are not superstitions. They are a precise ecological timekeeping system. Once heirloom rice is contaminated or replaced, this map is rendered obsolete. A cosmology becomes impossible to read.
Across the aisle, Panay Bukidnon of Capiz laid out riverbank greens, wild roots, freshwater shellfish, and forest-edge staples—foodways shaped by watersheds and ancestral territories. Their ingredients rarely enter commercial markets; their value exists in the ecosystems that raised them.
Here, biodiversity was not a theory. It lived in every jar, every leaf, every shell.
Beyond the Pavilion: The Hum of Real Food Economies
Step outside the tents, and the Capitol Lagoon turned into a sensory mosaic—heat radiating from charcoal grills, native cacao roasting on small pans, bamboo tubes steaming with heirloom rice, the sharp scent of calamansi cutting through the humid air. It was the 18th Negros Island Organic Farmers’ Festival, running side by side with Terra Madre Asia Pacific Philippines.
Farmers wiped sweat from their foreheads as they explained the difference between native corn and improved varieties. Youth cooperatives sold wild honey, forest herbs, and mountain-foraged greens. The food was not polished. It was earnest. Honest. Alive.
Every purchase—a cup of single-origin coffee, a bowl of broth seasoned with forest herbs—was a small but real vote for continuity. It kept farmers planting heirloom crops. It allowed diversity to exist outside exhibition halls and continue inside kitchens.
The Protest at the Gates
Outside the grounds, the opposition gathered. More than 80 organizations—farmers’ groups, church leaders, environmental advocates—marched through the streets of Bacolod carrying signs: “NO TO GMO,” “KEEP NEGROS ORGANIC,” “PROTECT LOCAL SEEDS.”
San Carlos Bishop Gerardo Alminaza led prayers. Students chanted. Farmers linked arms.
During the opening ceremony, Slow Food International President Edward Mukiibi addressed the issue head-on:
“When I came to Negros Occidental, I saw a beautiful province with rich gastronomy, many organic producers, and many organic landscapes. I hope the GMO entry will not happen. It would ruin the organic farming landscape Negros built over 18 years.”
His message landed with the weight of global attention.
Provincial leaders did not respond directly.
But inside the Indigenous Pavilion, the silence spoke clearly. Cross-pollination from GM crops could erase heirloom traits in a single season.
The threat was not theoretical.
It was genetic.
Where Science Meets Story
For the scientific grounding behind these fears, few voices carried as much clarity as Dr. Harold O. Buenvenida, conservation biologist, botanist, and head of the Capiz Ecology and Conservation Center (CECC). His work spans biodiversity, watershed management, malacological surveys, wildlife habitats, and localized science literacy—research that ties seeds, forests, and rivers into one interconnected system.
“We are intensifying efforts to raise awareness about these natural heritage treasures,” he said. His team at Capiz State University is building a comprehensive germplasm collection of native rice varieties, each accessioned, documented, and supported by field surveys and cultural mapping with Panay Bukidnon elders.
But seed conservation cannot stand alone.
“There must be a governance framework that restricts—and, when necessary, prohibits—GMO introductions in upland Indigenous territories,” he emphasized. “Safeguarding these rice varieties means safeguarding the forests, watersheds, and wildlife that sustain them.”
His research supports calls for the Central Panay Mountain Range to be declared a Protected Area under the Natural Park category—an ecological shield for both biodiversity and culture.
“Terra Madre reminds us that Indigenous seeds and landscapes are living systems,” he said. “They carry identity, nutrition, and climate resilience. But we need science, culture, and advocacy working together.”
A Closing Return to the Seeds
On the final afternoon, when the last visitors drifted toward their vans and the vendors began packing away their pots, Rennel Lavilla remained at his table, repacking the jars he had laid out that morning. He tapped the glass lightly to listen for damaged grains, checked each color, each texture, each scent. His concentration did not waver.
He carried seeds the way one carries stories—gently, attentively, with a sense of responsibility that does not break even under the noise of politics or the unease of an uncertain future.
As he packed the last jar, the protests outside grew louder. The debate over the GMO ordinance would continue long after Terra Madre Asia Pacific Philippines closed its tents. But inside the pavilion, where Rennel worked in the fading light, the truth was unwavering:
Food security is not a policy.
It is a practice.
A memory.
A seed someone is still saving by hand.
And in the highlands of Capiz, the guardians are still at work—one season, one ritual, one grain at a time.
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