GoOrganic! Philippines

*Mr Cabigas is a Co-convenor of Go Organic! Philippines and the Managing Director of  La Liga Policy Institute

The La Liga Policy Institute (La Liga) is a development policy research and advocacy non-government organization.  Last year, La Liga along with the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM), local government units of Alaminos City, Pangasinan, Samal and Dinalupihan, Bataan, Guimba, Nueva Ecija, Tabacco, Albay, Baoo, Camarines Sur and Naujan, Mindoro Oriental other NGOs and POs implemented the Organic FIELDS Support Program (OFSP) in partnership with the Department of Agriculture (DA) and its line agency, the Bureau of Soils and Water Management.

La Liga, as part of that partnership-project, serves as the secretariat of Go Organic!  At the same time, La Liga handles the Quad-Media Information, Education and Communication component of the project and of Go Organic!.  Our humble contribution to organic farming or organic agriculture is the popularization of natural farming systems and organic rice through various media – traditional and new media including the Go Organic! TV and radio programs.

As part of our advocacy of promoting organic farming, La Liga has integrated its organic farming advocacy with its budget advocacy under its Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI) campaign on the environment and climate change.  In the budget deliberations in 2010, La Liga lobbied for an additional PhP 500 million for organic agriculture (over and above the DA allocation of PhP 500 million).  What was approved by Congress was an additional PhP 300 million for DA’s rice program under the Office of Secretary which may or may not be used for organic agriculture.

We are proud to be part of the few NGOs that gives particular focus to organic farming, believing that it is sustainable, and an environment-friendly food production system that can help farmers in terms of income, better health and safer working environment.  At the same time, organic farming is a means by which our country can help in addressing the issue of climate change.

Our experience in OFSP highlights the acceptability of organic farming among farmers; the viability of organic agriculture in terms of production and income; the openness of Filipino consumers to organic products; and, the willingness of the public sector particularly local governments to support a more sustainable farming system.  We are glad to share with you that to this day many of our local government and local organization partners continue to pursue organic agriculture.
That is why we are delighted with the passage and signing into law of the Organic Agriculture Act.  Thanks to our host and sponsor who is among the principal authors of the law, Rep. Proceso Alcala, for championing organic farming.

Like most organic farming advocates, La Liga is particularly elated to be part of this consultation processes for the drafting of the law’s Implementing Rules and Regulation (IRR).

We don’t want the law to end up like most law which until now remains unimplemented because of lack of fund or budget, such as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act.  These laws, while important to the country’s environment sector, gets no substantial funding for its implementation.

Our role is to facilitate this activity which seeks to address issues and concerns as to how this law can genuinely benefit the various stakeholders in the agriculture sector including the Filipino consumers.  We hope to get the consensus of all the participants as much as possible, to be enlightened through knowledge-sharing during the discussions, so that will be able to craft an IRR that can facilitate full implementation of the law and ensure consistent government support.  Concretely, we would suggest that we look for a way to institutionalize the budget support for organic farming by way of coming up with a regular budget line for organic farming – including farmers’ capability building, research and development, production support, promotion and marketing.

We look forward to productive, meaningful discussions and broad consensus on how to institutionalize organic agriculture in our country.  We hope and pray for the success of this activity. Thank you. (end)