I thought I was going to a farmers' meeting.
Then I arrived…
and realized I wasn't on a farm.
Every third Sunday, farmers from the mountains gather in a small chapel.
At first, I honestly didn't understand why.
Their weekdays are spent on their own farms, growing things like corn, peanuts, and cassava.
So once a month, they leave their fields and come here.
I thought it was just a meeting.
It wasn't.
They were talking about what to plant.
Because if everyone focuses on one crop and demand suddenly drops, the whole community can feel it.
So they don't just think as individual farmers.
They think together.
Then Melvin showed me their association garden.
“This is the association garden."
"The garden of the whole association.”
Upo.
Okra.
String beans.
Chili.
Tomatoes.
Not one farmer's field.
Everyone's.
That was the moment I realized I had been looking at the wrong thing.
I came here thinking I was documenting a farmers' meeting.
I was actually seeing how a mountain community manages risk — and makes decisions about its future together.
Almost 3 years in the Philippines,
and I'm still learning that sometimes the most important parts of food culture have nothing to do with what ends up on the plate.
They're about the people who grow it.
The choices they make.
And the communities behind them.
Before I left, they told me:
"Balik."
"Balik puhon."
Come back.
So I will.
Still Learning.
Still Exploring.
One local story at a time🙏
When I arrived at the chapel, I thought I was just going to see a farmers’ meeting. Corn, peanuts, cassava — a checklist of crops, a quick note about a schedule, done.
Then Melvin walked me down to the garden and none of that mattered anymore.
Upo. Okra. String beans. Chili. Tomatoes. Not his. Not any one farmer's. Everyone's.
It made me stop for a second — and then laugh, quietly, at how simple the answer was.
These farmers do that for each other. Not out of sentiment — out of necessity. One bad season, spread across everyone, is survivable. One bad season, carried alone, isn't.
II thought I was documenting a farmers' meeting. But I was actually seeing how a community takes care of each other.
The answer wasn't in what they were planting — it was in a community deciding, together, what to plant so no single family had to carry the risk alone.
| Date | July 19, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Location | Amancion, Catmon, Cebu |
| Event Type | Monthly Farmers' Association Meeting & Collective Planting Decision |
| Access Method | Invited by a local contact (Melvin) |
| Food Featured | Association Garden — Upo, Okra, String Beans, Chili, Tomatoes |
| Cost to Attend | Free (by arrangement) |
| Rarity | 🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜ — A recurring but rarely documented community institution |
| Bayanihan Index | 🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨 — Fully collective, shared-risk decision-making |
Whether this kind of shared decision-making is unique to this mountain association, or something quietly happening in farming communities across Cebu, is still something I don't know.