One component of the research is a household livelihood survey that asked detailed sector-specific questions on income sources of all household members.The respondent was asked which among the following six categories of income sources the household depends on: 1) fishing; 2) tourism; 3) crop farming; 4) livestock and poultry; 5) government/public service; and 6) others. After identifying one income source, a series of questions that would allow calculation of net income or revenues from each income source were asked. In the case of farming,questions on the types of crops, frequency, volume and value of harvests, and costs of farming inputs were asked.Apart from income, questions on consumption and subjected happiness were asked to assess the over-all welfare conditions of the households. For subjective happiness, mobile vertical grow tables the actual question posed in the survey instrument followed the 10-point numerical rating scale of Cantril : “How happy or contented are you with your current living conditions.
Please answer using a scale of 0 – 10 where 0 is very unhappy and discontented and 10 is perfectly happy and contented.”A total sample of 489 respondent households was generated through in-person interview by experienced enumerators of the Research Center of Notre Dame of Marbel University during the month of February 2019. All 19 barangays of LakeSebu except Ned were included in the sampling frame. Farming households in Ned are very far from each other, which makes the survey method very difficult to implement in the barangay. Hence, an FGD with farmers in Barangay Ned wasconducted1.Majority of the household-respondents were engaged in crop farming activities, indicating that the means of livelihood in the Municipality is still predominantly crop farming despite the growing tourism and fishing industries that provide livelihood to only 94 or 19.22% and 50 or 10.22%, respectively, of surveyed households. About a quarter of these crop-farming households indicated that farming is the primary income source of the household. Farm production data such as crop type, farm area, harvest and inputs were obtained from 204 farming household respondents.
One hundred fifty or 73.53% of the surveyed households are into corn farming, while only 20 or 9.80% are into rice farming. A number of surveyed farming households are planting tomatoes , abaca , banana , and coconut. Other crops planted by surveyed farming households are bell pepper , rubber , squash , Baguio beans , durian ,eggplant , string beans , radish , and taro, okra, coffee, green of fingerchili,mobile vertical farm chili pepper, pineapple and Chinese cabbage . According to the Municipal Agriculturist of Lake Sebu, the farming households are mostly the indigenous T’boli who prefer and are more used to planting corn, their traditional crop, and are reluctant to shift to other agricultural crops being promoted by the government.Table 2 summarizes findings from the survey on revenues, costs and net income of farming households, by crop type. Annual gross farming income or revenues are calculated by multiplying production volume per harvest/cropping season by the number of harvest/cropping seasons per year and then, by the price per unit of harvest. Price per unit of harvest was asked directly in the survey,and/or derived from revenue figures and production volume indicated by surveyed households.
Costs include cash costs, non-cash costs and imputed costs for the following items: labor , materials , hauling and trucking , drying, lease and rentals, and irrigation. Based on survey results, corn farming appears to be the least profitable. On the average, a corn farming household cultivates an average of 1.71 ha, generates an annual gross revenues or gross value of production of PHP65,656. However,substantial farming costs of PHP51,281 which wipes out 78.11% of revenues leaves very little to the household.Net returns per hectare of corn farm is very low at P8,405.99, and the resulting net returns to cost ratio from corn farming turns out to be the lowest among all crops farmed in the Municipality. On the other hand, rice farming households in Lake Sebu till just an average of 1.19 ha but generate annual revenues ofPHP89,349, the highest among all crops. Production costs of PHP46,803 is even lower than corn’s, thereby generating net income to the rice farming household that is about thrice the amount realized by the average corn farming household.