Organic Empowerment

Jose Luigi Gabriel Torres

Farming may be far from the mind for the typical urban Filipino looking for the route that would lead to the most financial reward. Perhaps there is merit in this attitude because recent data from the National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB) show that the contribution of the agricultural sector to the GDP is at a rapid decline over the past two decades. Yet there are one in three Filipinos employed in agriculture making it one of the biggest employment sectors in the economy and not surprisingly, most of the poor are concentrated in this sector.

Many farmers are caught in the vicious cycle of poverty, growing food for the Philippine nation with a meager income that is barely enough to sustain their own families. Although the statistics may paint a bleak picture of the agricultural sector, it does not tell the whole story. There are instances, the quiet yet meaningful triumphs, where farmers are able to generate a surplus of crops for income with enough left over to sustain themselves.

Benguet’s beautiful, lush landscape, with its cool mountain weather gives it a unique condition that allows farmers to cultivate crops that would not grow elsewhere. More than half of its employed population is involved in agriculture, a crucial contributor to Benguet’s economy which supplies nearly 80% of Metro Manila’s vegetable needs.

The humble Ibaloi residents of Sitio (part of a village) Ubod and Apunan are a farming community, having relied on subsistence farming to feed themselves before the introduction of systematic organic farming by Shontoug Foundation. The difficult topography of Benguet made it difficult for individual households to cooperate with one another. Farming was not a communal effort that could benefit the community.

Organic farming was one of the key practices that Shontoug refined in order to bring the community together. One of the solutions to bringing the individual households together was found in the most unassuming of crops, the humble ginger root. The residents of Sitio Ubod and Apunan have long been cultivating this crop which could grow anywhere in the hills making it one of the most taken for granted resources in the area.

This simple plant is well known by the community for its medicinal and nutritional properties, but it was never considered by them for commercial produce before. Shontoug refined their methods of processing raw ginger that is fit for general consumption. With the generous assistance of WE 21, a Japanese NGO that advocates empowering women, the residents of Sitio Ubod and Apunan were able to expand and export to Japan.

Soon, the community were earning a humble income which they were able to utilize for more communal activities. They were able to haul building materials up the cool hills of their community to build the UBAPAS Training Centre which became the de facto venue for communal activity.

Moreover, organic farming was expanded to other types of crops such as the famed Benguet coffee and luscious ‘pipino’ (cucumber) and green bellpeppers and different species of rice.

Organic farming has been criticized by detractors as too expensive and low yielding to have any positive dent in the agricultural sector. But for the farming Ibaloi such as Manay Rufina, it has brought more than they would ever need because of the communal effort to make the practice sustainable. She claims that commercialized fertilizers and pesticides are prone to abuse because of the potential reward for the excess that they could produce. The use of chemicals tends to destroy the integrity of the soil and leach into the water sources, poisoning a crucial resource for basic survival.

On the other hand, organic farming requires being sensitive to the needs of the soil and the land, in essence being integrated with the surrounding environment to know its cycles and patterns well enough. Commercialized farming, as its critics claim, relies on excess that is disruptive to the natural cycles of the fertile soil and destructive to the surrounding flora, fauna and water sources.

Manay Rufina claims that organic farming is much more conducive to the health and sustainability of the human body and the environment. True enough, at least for the residents of the Sitio Ubod and Apunan, everyone appears to be ‘malusog’ (healthy) with little to no health worries. Even the senior citizens, as wizened and weathered by time they may be, can scale the hills and mountains with surprising dexterity. One could argue that it’s not the produce of organic farming that contributed to their health; rather it was their lifestyle in the hills. Whatever the reason may be for their robust health, organic farming was and is a significant part of their lives.

The success of the Sitio Ubod and Apunan, may seem to be a distant and insignificant anecdote of success to someone looking for social transformation at the national policy level. Their success was not a sweeping solution to the institutional problems of the agricultural sector; rather they present a self-sustaining effort that can be emulated by communities that can harness their natural wealth and communal manpower. Manay Rufina highlights how she and some of her fellow farmers now travel to other communities, even abroad to share and absorb insights and strategies in breaking the crippling cycle of poverty through organic farming.

The practice presented a solution to their problem of subsistence farming which was highly prone to bad yields. Malnutrition haunts households who are unable to break away from this practice. Organic farming in Sitio Ubod and Apunan was just one of the many programs initiated by the community with the guidance of Shontoug that motivated communities to solve their problems in their own terms.

The poor, far from popular conception, are not resource-less and helpless communities that require a technocratic solution to poverty. Organic farming in this instance is a case of community empowerment and social cohesion that gave birth to a self-sustaining system managed by the community themselves.

This, in my opinion, is the kind of problem solving that should be taking place at the grassroots.

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Gab spent his internship in Summer 2013 with CODE-NGO working on CSO engagement in the updating of the Philippine Development Plan. This year, Gab has finally completed his undergraduate degree in Political Science with minors in Japanese Studies and Philosophy. While looking for regular employment, he is doing volunteer work at the Manila Observatory. He also plans to pursue graduate studies while working. During his free-time, he is occupied with his tablet or laptop, reading e-books, practicing Japanese and computer programming, or tries to be fit by swimming.