Going organic

Not too many are familiar with AANI, the acronym for Agri-Aqua Network International Inc. which started in the country fifteen years ago primarily to disseminate agricultural and aqua culture technology. This is the organization that is now actively promoting organic farming in the Philippines, supplying our small and medium farm enterprises with the technology needed to produce chemical-free farm products.

The organization’s VP for Operations, Eng. Pol Rubia says it took a long while before the small farmers embraced the organic method, having used chemical fertilizers and pesticides all their life. Organic farming is more laborious, more time- and effort- consuming and certainly more expensive if undertaken on a small scale. However, the world is unmistakably, if not slowly, taking the organic route, and more and more people are willing to pay the slightly higher price for safe, chemical-free and healthy organic farm products.

Engr. Rubia says that with inorganic farming, one feeds the plants but kills the soil, rendering it acidic over the long term. With organic farming, one enriches and feeds the soil, making it a “live soil” that is able to convert organic matters into safe plant food. Try teaching that overnight to a backyard farmer.

The problem is we do not have enough organic inputs that can sustain organic farming as a thriving industry, so AANI is teaching farmers through free seminars on how to produce their own organic inputs to sustain their healthy farming. Without these organic inputs, the farmer seeks the easy way out and simply goes back to chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This is where the organization is seeking the intervention of government.

For now, we are happy to note that big supermarkets have allotted organic farm producers their own space. There are also regular weekend markets that carry these organic produce, and the farmers are actually selling more and more every month. In the Mindanao area, there are special farms that produce organic rice and muscovado sugar, organic mangoes and other organic fruits. Now, even livestock has gone organic. There is a fairly new big farm just outside Metro Manila selling organic free-range chickens and fresh eggs, though the price is a bit stiff and still uncompetitive with your regular wet market chicken. These free-range chickens find a lucrative market in Japan and Singapore where consumers have a marked preference for healthy food products. Coming up next is organic fish.

One problem the organic farmers cited, however, is the red tape involved in having their products certified by the Organic Certification Center of the Philippines (OCCP) the only agency authorized to give such certification. The law says a farmer or food producer cannot use the term organic unless his products are certified by the OCCP. Since there is only one body certifying, you can imagine the backlog they have. To compound this, a farmer has to get this certification yearly, and thhhhhhhis certification costs between P20,000–P30,000 per. This is what it costs to use the label “organic”. What the AANI has advised the farmers who cannot afford the yearly fees is to refrain from using the term organic – just declare their farm produce as “pesticide-free”. The OCCP defeats the very purpose of its existence with these excessive fees.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino. –Ray Butch Gamboa (The Philippine Star