DAVAO CITY - Farmer-neighbors in Neptune, Barangay Balutakay, Bansalan, Davao del Sur, an hour ride from the city, started their organic farming last year with the help of some volunteer groups, including a German agency and the provincial government.

A year later, everyone agreed that organic farming is the way to go. Among them was Rolly Ampoloquio, who was initially hesitant to believe that a mere soil agent would lead him to pesticide-free cabbages.

About two months ago, members of the Kapwa Upliftment Foundation, Inc., a group helping communities around the Mt. Apo Natural Park, visited the area as part of the farmers field day to assess whether their project with 15 families bore fruit.

Accompanied by Karl Jaeger of the German Development Assistance, the group saw how the lives of the farmers were transformed with the use of diadegma semiclausum, a wasp about a centimeter in length which lays eggs on the back of a diamond-back moth, a pest known to devour cabbages and similar high-value semi-temperate vegetables.

Laying about 35 eggs a day, the diadegma larva starts eating the tissues and organs of the hosts and eventually consumes the host's other vital parts. As the days go on, the larva turns into a new diadegma using its prey as eventual nesting place.

This solution has been used for two decades now against the diamond-back moth in semi-temperate vegetable farming in the Cordilleras.

The foundation, with the help of the group of Mr. Jaeger, an organic agriculturist, introduced the technology in May last year to the group of Mr. Ampoloquio, who was among those who wanted to resist as they took into consideration the amount of money that they would lose if they allowed to adopt the technology, thinking that without pesticides, their cabbage plants would not last a day.

Because he wanted to "see and believe," Mr. Ampoloquio offered to the group about 500 square meters of his land for the experiment, half of it would be planted with cabbages that would be sprayed with chemicals and the other would be exposed to diadegma.

Based on the Department of Agriculture's research, farmers spend about P24,000 a hectare for spraying pesticides two to three times before the harvest because of the diamond-back moth.

Aside from diadegma, agriculturists from the foundation and Mr. Jaeger told Mr. Ampoloquio to spray Dipel, an insecticide with Bacillus thuringiensis as base and does not harm the wasp nor the environment, to control aphids and other insects.

A year later, Mr. Ampoloquio could not wait to see the foundation's members and Mr. Jaeger about the progress in his cabbage field.

As it was harvest time, Mr. Ampoloquio told the group that the cabbages in the field sprayed with insecticides still bore signs that diamond-back moth feasted on them, while the ones inhabited by diadegma were smooth, had fuller heads and were greener.

And because they knew that their cabbages were free from chemicals, the farmers, who used to fear of chemical contamination having known the exposure of their plants to pesticides, said they could now eat their produce.

Now, the foundation and Mr. Jaeger only has one problem: looking for the market for the insecticide-free cabbages. The solution, however, is getting closer.