Making Benguet the country’s organic farming capital for vegetables has stalked the future of chicken manure as a fresh, cheap and readily available fertilizer. For years, farmers have relied on chicken dung to grow their vegetables. Today’s campaign toward organic agriculture has challenged the credibility of chicken dung as an organic farm input. It has revived calls for its ban due to its obnoxious smell and health threat.
Farmers prefer chicken dung as fertilizer over commercial brands, because it’s lower price. The recent move to regulate the commercial sale of chicken dung, however, has sparked debates among farmers, traders and even environmentalist.
Despite its wide use by vegetable farmers, chicken dung has yet to be accredited as fertilizer by the Fertilizer and Pesticides Authority. This fact does not surprise soil scientist. To them, chicken dung dose not serve as a fertilizer but only as a “supplement” to improve soil condition. The manure, though, may be considered an organic as opposed to a synthetic farm input.
Since the manure hosts the residue of antibiotics injected in chickens, it could not be considered organic and because it is acidic, it can destroy soil health. Many farmers are not aware that when applied to the soil, raw chicken dung would undergo decomposition and release acid that is detrimental to soil health.
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