PITOGO, Philippines — The Glinoga Integrated Farm in Quezon province sits among brackish fishponds, some active, others long abandoned and slowly reclaimed by the landscape.
About a four-hour drive from Manila, the farm in Pitogo municipality can be reached by land or sea. Both routes pass through mangroves.
“We raised the embankment and kept the mangroves, because the lowest part often floods,” Ninieveh Glinoga, who manages the farm, told Mongabay during a visit in May.
The farm’s coconut-covered slopes lead to tidal rice paddies below and wetlands beyond, reflecting the mosaic landscape found across many Philippine coastal communities.
As coastal developments across the Philippines erase wetlands that once buffered communities and sustained marine biodiversity, the farm offers a different model: food production intertwined with the coastal ecosystem rather than apart from it.
Glinoga’s husband’s family has owned the land for generations. The coconut, cacao and sugarcane that once grew here abundantly sustained the family.
But in 2008, the family visited the farm and found it nearly unrecognizable. Years of slash-and-burn farming by a tenant had stripped the land bare. Smoke rose from the ground.
“The first thing the tenant fed us was native chicken. There were no greens, just salt,” Glinoga recalled.
Her grandmother-in-law, who once managed the farm, could no longer visit due to old age. The relative who next took charge fell ill, leaving the tenant in control.
As Glinoga and her husband resumed regular visits, the tenant disappeared without notice.
Glinoga stepped in, applying experience from her own upbringing as a tenant’s daughter, blended with insights into permaculture gleaned from visits to weekend markets when their family was still living abroad.
With just 1,000 pesos (around $16) in spare family money, she and her husband bought worms for vermicompost hoping to restore the depleted fields. The recovery was slow. For three years, they focused on reviving the soil, as well as on clearing overgrowth and building a bathroom and storage for tools.
By 2011, the farm had hired its first staff, and in 2012 they installed a water pump for easier access. The investment took a decade to pay off.
Today, coconuts dominate the farm’s higher grounds with their fruits processed into copra. “Coconuts like salt, just not in excess,” Glinoga said.
Below, rice grows next to swamp grasses and forage crops where goats and cows graze alongside birds like the buff-banded rail (Gallirallus philippensis). A seasonal fishpond near the exit rises and recedes.
Higher up on the opposite slope, vegetable plots and bamboo clusters stabilize the soil during heavy rains. On top sits a training school overlooking fenced livestock areas, with a production site for wood vinegar and tar behind.
Along this slope stand simple houses where Glinoga and her staff live, outfitted with rain catchment systems, goat pens and an outdoor kitchen. A campground is available for overnight visitors. Cacao and coconut trees spread across the slope, while flowering plants line the trails, all leading to an intact forest along the ascent to the entrance.
The farm reflects what researchers describe as the six permaculture zones: house, gardens, grazing, cash crops, food forest and wilderness. , which provided a nationwide overview of Philippine permaculture landscapes and their farming components, noted that Glinoga farm integrated mangroves into its wilderness zone: a space often beyond direct farm management yet offering significant ecological services.
Of the 12 sites studied across 11 provinces, Glinoga showed the highest species richness with 65 plant species — 75-95% of which were perennials such as cacao, mango, banana and bamboo — within a 1-hectare (2.4-acre) sampling area.
For outsiders, life on the farm tangled in the wild is hard to fathom. “You wouldn’t manage it,” a neighbor told Rosabel Cadiz when she was asked to be a cook a decade ago.
