Improving the Effectiveness of the Forest Nursery Industry in Leyte Province, the Philippines

The decentralized management of forest resources has been viewed as the best alternative to the much criticized government-initiated resource management approach. In the Philippines, policies and programs geared towards the sustainable development of forest resources currently focus on promoting the people-based, multiple-use oriented small-scale forestry. Nonetheless, the pace of scaling up the smallholder forestry is hampered by several constraints, one of which is the shortage of planting stock and use of low quality planting materials. The aim of this research has been to identify potentially sound alternatives that would be instrumental in improving the availability of high quality planting stock for a wide range of tree species to smallholder tree farmers. To address this aim, a study was undertaken on the forestry nursery industry of Leyte Province in the Philippines. The research process was carried out with the focus of: (1) understanding the production schemes and management systems adopted by individual, communal and government nurseries and the operational effectiveness of each nursery group in supplying the planting stock requirement of smallholder tree farmers; (2) identifying the factors that influence the production of the nursery industry and the extent that these factors influence the effectiveness of operation among the three major nursery groups; and (3) designing alternatives to improve the operational effectiveness of the nursery industry to ensure a sustainable supply of high quality planting materials of various species to smallholders. The study applies the systems approach and findings are based on qualitative and quantitative data that were derived through various methods, including personal interviews of nursery operators and other stakeholders, survey and observation, actual measurements of seedling quality parameters, focus group discussions and archival research. A Bayesian Belief Network of the Leyte nursery industry was developed based on the data set that was generated and from the result of data analysis. The model was used to simulate and analyse the operational effectiveness of the nursery industry system to provide insights of the system behaviour to inform policy makers about measures for improving the operational effectiveness of the nursery industry. The model was refined and validated to ensure the reliability of the result of the system analysis. The nursery industry in Leyte Province is not well-organized and the operation is hampered by a combination of social, economic, technical and extension constraints. The individual nursery group which occupies the greatest proportion of the nursery sector in terms of population and probably the volume of seedlings used in small-scale forestry, is operating with scarce resources and only a low level of assistance from supporting agencies. Support measures have been focused on nurseries managed by community organizations; however, the support has not encouraged the community organizations to become self-supporting. In general, few of the community organizations have sustained their nursery operation in spite of the obvious need for planting stock. Government nurseries provide seedlings to smallholders but the uptake has been hampered by factors including high transportation cost, inappropriate species choice, and the requirement of documentation proving land ownership in accessing the free seedlings. Scaling up the operational effectiveness of the nursery industry requires a coordinated operation among the three nursery groups. Each nursery group possesses the attributes that complement the shortcomings of the other nursery categories. While decentralized nursery management is widely perceived as the best alternative of reaching smallholders with planting stock, transferring the seedling production to smallholder nurseries needs a strong collaboration with the government nursery group. Further, a close coordination between nurseries within the same group is essential to facilitate the flow of resources from one nursery to another. Recognizing the current operation scenario of the nursery system, it is imperative for the government nursery group to refine its objectives, operating schemes, types of assistance provided to smallholders and means of extending the support and make it attuned to the needs and constraints of the smallholder nursery group. Provision of training, which is normally the form of assistance provided by supporting agencies to the smallholder nursery group, may help sustain the operation of smallholder nurseries, however, a continuous supply of germplasm and a favourable seedling market condition are found to be highly important for sustaining the operation and improving the effectiveness of smallholder nurseries