USAPANG BAYAN, 2-3 pm, March 12, 2026
Part 1 - Organic Farming
Today's Green Revolution for Health and Environment
While organic food accounts for 1 to 2 percent of total food sales worldwide, the organic food market is growing rapidly, far ahead of the rest of the food industry, in both developed and developing nations.
Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature School on Blog
Senior citizens attend to the barangay garden where most of the vegetables are organically grown. Lagro QC
Ms Melly C Tenorio, host, and Dr Abe V Rotor, guest
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Above all concerns about organic farming, you gain peace of mind in eating products that are friendly to your health and the environment. Your fears of toxic metals like cadmium, lead and mercury are eliminated. So with residual toxicity from pesticides and chemical fertilizers. There are no antibiotic residues, induced hormones, engineered genes from bacteria and other organisms. You keep fields and waterways free from harmful runoff of chemical substances. Biologically, you keep down chances of pest and disease organisms to mutate and develop resistance.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eat more fruits and vegetables, those grown organically – without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, antibiotics, and the like, and above all – not genetically modified. You will live a healthier and longer life - and kind to Nature, too.It is true. The whole world is going green and organic. It is the current Green Revolution that provides the foundation of sustainable agriculture, balanced ecology, and healthier and longer life.
Here is a basic comparison between conventional farming and organic farming:
Conventional farmers vs Organic farmers
• Apply chemical fertilizers to promote plant growth. /Apply natural fertilizers, such as manure or compost, to feed soil and plants.
• Spray insecticides to reduce pests and disease. /Use beneficial insects and birds, mating disruption or traps to reduce pests and disease.
• Use chemical herbicides to manage weeds. /Rotate crops, till, hand weed or mulch to manage weeds.
• Give animals antibiotics, growth hormones and medications to prevent disease and spur growth. /Give animals organic feed and allow them access to the outdoors. Use preventive measures, such as rotational grazing, a balanced diet and clean housing, to help minimize disease.
As one who grew up in a farm and practitioner of organic farming, here are other features of organic farming, which I would like to contribute.
1. Minimized wastage. Example: gleaning of grains is done by chicken.
2. Milling of grains practically leaves no waste, even the hull is ground with bran to serve as natural fiber and roughage for animals and fish.
3. Less mess and odor on the farm through efficient recycling. Farm wastes – crop residues and animal waste - immediately go to composting.
4. Organic farming is key to tri-commodity farming – crops, animals and fish farming.
Mushroom is a health food, it has anti-cancer properties. It is the only vegetable that
grows in total absence of sunlight.
6. Freshness of farm harvest and products is enhanced, hence requires no preservatives.
7. Community-based farming is ideal with organic farming.
8. Direct marketing linkage with outlets and end users.
9. lesser risk to human health.
10. More environment friendly. It enhances ecology, that is, it promotes welfare of the ecosystem.
11. Less dependent on fossil fuel, favors tapping alternative and renewable energy sources.
12. Integrated with farm life, managed by family or by small and medium enterprise.
13. Aesthetics and quaintness of farm life through organic farming.
14. Farm becomes a tourist attraction as model in agriculture, ecology and sanctuary of wildlife.
15. Low technology, affordable and practical, thus less expensive.
Organic food has higher nutritional value and better taste.
There is no substitute to buko (young coconut) as food and drink. The roots of coconut sieve toxic metals and other harmful substances from getting into the plant system.
Results from Quality Low Food Input (QLIF), a 5-year integrated study funded by the European Commission, confirmed that the quality of crops and livestock products from organic and conventional farming systems differs considerably. Specifically, results from a QLIF project studying the effects of organic and low-input farming on crop and livestock nutritional quality "showed that organic food production methods resulted in:
(a) Higher levels of nutritionally desirable compounds (e.g., vitamins/antioxidants and poly-unsaturated fatty acids such as omega-3);
(b) Lower levels of nutritionally undesirable compounds such as heavy metals, mycotoxins, pesticide residues and glyco-alkaloids in a range of crops and/or milk;
(c) A lower risk of fecal Salmonella shedding in pigs.
Regarding taste, a 2001 study concluded that organic apples were sweeter by blind taste test. Firmness of the apples was also rated higher than those grown conventionally. In the market, organically grown fruits and vegetables look fresher and more solid.
Organic food may also have potentially higher amounts of natural biotoxins like solanine potatoes, as to compensate for the lack of externally applied fungicides and herbicides.
Organic farming favors community farms where the produce is geographically closer to the consumer. Local food is seen as a way to get fresher food and invest in one's own community.
Facts and statistics about Worldwide Green and Organic Movement.
• While organic food accounts for 1–2% of total food sales worldwide, the organic food market is growing rapidly, far ahead of the rest of the food industry, in both developed and developing nations.
• World organic food sales jumped from US $23 billion in 2002 to $52 billion in 2008.
• The world organic market has been growing by 20% a year since the early 1990s, with future growth estimates ranging from 10%–50% annually depending on the country.
• Organic food is the fastest growing sector of the American Food market. Organic food sales have grown by 17 to 20 percent a year for the past few years while sales of conventional food have grown at only about 2 to 3 percent a year.
• In Canada, organic food sales surpassed $1 billion in 2006, accounting for 0.9% of food sales in Canada. Organic food sales by grocery stores were 28% higher in 2006 than in 2005.
• In the European Union 3.9% of the total utilized agricultural area is used for organic production. The countries with the highest proportion of organic land are Austria (11%) and Italy (8.4), followed by Czech Republic and Greece (both 7.2%). The lowest figures are shown for Malta (0.1%), Poland (0.6%) and Ireland (0.8%)
• In Austria 11.6% of all farmers produced organically in 2007. The government has created incentives to increase the figure to 20% by 2010. Some 4.9% of all food products sold in Austrian supermarkets (including discount stores) in 2006 were organic. There were 8000 different organic products available in the same year.
• In Italy, since 2005 all school lunches must be organic by law.
• In Poland, in 2005 168,000 ha of land were under organic management. 7 percent of Polish consumers buy food that was produced according to the EU-Eco-regulation. The value of the organic market is estimated at 50 million Euros (2006).
• In UK, organic food sales increased from just over £100 million in 1993/94 to £1.21 billion in 2004 (an 11% increase on 2003).
• In Cuba, after the collapse of the USSR in 1990, agricultural inputs that had previously been purchased from Eastern Bloc countries were no longer available in Cuba, and many Cuban farms converted to organic methods out of necessity. Consequently, organic agriculture is a mainstream practice in Cuba, while it remains an alternative practice in most other countries. Cuba exports organic citrus and citrus juices to EU markets. Cuba's forced conversion to organic methods may position the country to be a global supplier of organic products.
Organics Olympiad 2007 awarded gold, silver and bronze medals to countries based on twelve measures of organic leadership. The gold medal winners were:
• Australia with 11.8 million organic hectares.
• Mexico with 83,174 organic farms.
• Romania with 15.9 million certified wild organic hectares.
• China with 135 thousand MT of organic wild harvest produce; and with an increase of 1,998,705 organic hectares.
• Denmark with 1805 organic research publications recorded.
• Germany with 69 members of. International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), the worldwide umbrella organization for organic agriculture movement, uniting more than 750 member organizations in 108 countries.
• Liechtenstein with 27.9% of its agricultural land certified organic.
• Mali with an 8488% annual increase in its organic hectares, and with a 10.9% 4-yearly increment of the organic share of its total agriculture.
• Latvia with an annual 3.01% increase in its organic share of agricultural land.
• Switzerland with a per capita annual spend on organic produce of 103 Euros.
Eating the right food enhances happiness, peace of mind, good health and long and active life - and the quality of your environment. This is a primordial Human Right. It is also the best you can contribute in saving the earth. Enjoy the quaintness of Farming with Nature.
Part 2 - Natural Food and Natural Farming
"Natural farming is the key in the pursuit of this global trend. It is important in sustaining economic production, above all, the integrity of our ecosystems." - avr
Dr Abe V Rotor
Good health and good food go together, doctors all over the world tell us. Even our children quite often explain to us the importance of proper nutrition, balanced diet, fortification with vitamins and minerals. They tell us to take high protein food, or ask us if we are taking adequate calories. Lately such terms, beta-carotene and good cholesterol have come into the picture.
Now I hear a new term, probiotics. The way I under-stand these substances is that they keep our body always on the alert to fend off stress as a result of overwork and diseases. They are front liners and act as defense shield, Now if probiotics and antibiotics (substances that directly kill germs) work together, can we then say we can have better health and longer life?
Apparently yes, confirmed a balikbayan United Nations official who is working on a new food source from cyanobacterla or blue green algae. Again, this is a revolution in food and agriculture by the fact itself that we are now taking unconventional food such as Spirulina, an ancient organism probably the first kind of living thing that appeared on earth.
Going back to the main topic, I would like to see the other side of the fence. There are many reported ailments and abnormalities, which are traced to the food we take, and it is not only for the lack of intake. Cancer for instance, is often related to food. So with high uric acid which leads to kidney trouble. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, high sugar level. Aftatoxin causes cirrhosis of the liver. Ulcers are food related. So with many allergies.
Given these premises, I would like to discuss a new frontier of agriculture which I believe4 is also the concern of other sectors of the food industry. It is not only that we must produce enough food. We must be able to produce quality food, which ensures good health, reduces risks to diseases and ailments, and prolongs life. This is the topic that I would like to take up with you in this special occasion, the 25th year or silver anniversary of NFA that I was once a part. I am going to talk about food, which should contribute to good health, long life, enjoyment, and peace of mind.
Here then are seven postulates to address this challenge to present day agriculture. We reckon the Green Revolution in the sixties which ushered production gains from improved varieties and techniques, followed by another wave in the seventies and eighties which was responsible in opening the fields of mariculture (farming the sea), and conversion of wastelands into farmlands. We soon realized that there is need “to go back to basics". Thus ecological farming was born. It is also farming with a moral cause: the enhancement of quality life, good health and long life on one hand, and the maintenance of an ecologically balance environment.
1. IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO EAT FOOD GROWN UNDER NATURAL CONDITION THAN FOOD GROWN WITH CHEMICALS. This statement can be captured with one term "natural food". All over the world this is a label is found on food grown without chemicals. People are afraid of becoming sick because of the chemicals introduced into food. They know that chemical fertilizers and pesticides go with the crops and are passed on to the body destroying our organs and systems.
No artificial additives, please. Additives such as food colorings and fillers are looked upon with suspicion.
2. PEOPLE ARE AVOIDING HARMFUL RESIDUES AND ARTIFICIAL ADDITIVES IN FOOD. A trace of certain farm chemicals is enough to condemn a whole shipment under the rules of the US Food and Drug Administration. One kind of residue that people are avoiding is antibiotics. Poultry and hog farms maintain high antibiotic levels to safeguard the animals from diseases. In so doing the antibiotics is passed on to the consumers. In the first place our body does not need antibiotics. But every time we eat eggs, chicken, pork chop, steak, and the like, we are taking in cumulatively antibiotics. This makes our immune system idle. This punishes certain organs like the kidney and liver. To others, antibiotics cause allergy.
Another culprit is radiation. Traces of radiation can be hazardous. Many countries immediately took drastic action to avoid contamination following the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident ten years ago. Then we have toxic metals emitted from manufacturing and from vehicles. These are mercury, cadmium, and lead, to name the most common pollutants in our waters today.
3. PEOPLE ARE BECOMING MORE CONSCIOUS OF THE NUTRITION VALUE OF FOOD RATHER THAN ITS PACKAGING AND PRESENTATION. Many people now reject junk foods, even if their packaging is attractive. Softdrinks have taken the backseat, courtesy of fruit juices and mineral water. People have even learned that plant varieties have different levels of food value even if they belong to the same species. To a lesser extent this is also true among the different breeds of an animal species.
4. FRESHNESS IS THE FIRST CHOICE CRITERION FOR PERISHABLE FOOD. Indeed there is no substitute to fresh-ness, a function of handling and marketing. The farmer has the first and direct hand in enhancing this quality. If he keeps his plant; healthy, their products will 'have longer shelf life. Products free from pest and diseases stay fresh longer.
5. FOOD PROCESSING MUST BE APPROPRIATE AND SAFE.
6. FOOD MUST BE FREE FROM PEST AND DISEASES.
It is shocking to find certain pest in food. So with the possibility that food is a carrier of disease organisms. Reports about infested NFA rice needs serious attention. Poor rice is an insult to the Filipino whatever is his economic status.
There has been news of food poisoning too, as a result of food deterioration, or contamination. Remember the Seven Eleven Store mass food poisoning? For a reputable establishment, such an accident deserves something to look deeper. What is the truth behind image building and advertisement?
7. FOOD PRESERVATION MUST ENSURE QUALITY, AND ABOVE ALL, SAFETY. Be aware of the fish that is stiff yet looks fresh. Be keen with formalin odor. Salitre is harmful, so with vetsin. Too much salt is not good to the body. I saw a puto maker use lye or sodium hydroxide to help in the coagulation of the starch. Sampaloc or tamarind candies are made bright red with shoe dye. So with ube to look life real ube.
Now I am going to discuss in details each postulate as it applies to the farmer, and the condition of his farm. I will try to relate the issue with actual practices so that we can draw up innovations to improve them, as we explore technologies that would settle certain issues.
8. AVOID AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE FOOD FROM GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS OR GMO. There is an increasing awareness worldwide on the potential harmful effects of taking GMO products as food. Bt corn for example carries a gene of the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, golden rice carries the yellow gene of the daffodil, milk contains recombinant bovine growth hormone. Other GMO food include soybeans, papaya, squash and zucchini, which carry "foreign" genetic material. Here is a list of countries that have banned both GMO imports and GMO cultivation: Algeria, Kyrgyzstan, Bhutan, Madagascar, Peru, Russia, Venezuela, Zimbabwe. EU members are selective in banning GMO. Most countries require labeling of GMO products, and are strict in their quarantine laws, and land use policy against GMO.
NATURAL FARMING
Community gardening, QC
First, the organic fertilizer must be free from pathogen that causes diseases.
Second, it must not carry toxic waste or metal as this kind of fertilizer is manufactured from waste materials.
Let me give you scenarios of natural farming.
1. Payatak method (Samar) - This is a local version of zero tillage. No plowing, no harrowing. A herd of carabaos trample of the soil until it turns puddle, then the one-month old seedlings are transplanted. No spray, no fertilizer. This is natural farming in the marginal sense, a carryover of traditional farming.
2. Mixed orchard (Zambales) - A mixture of several kinds of trees, orchard, firewood trees, forest trees grow together without any apparent planning. Yet these trees follow a natural pattern of arrangement. They have no common pest, they need soil fertility differentially, they have their own space niche, they make up several storeys. Management is very little. Nature takes care of everything.
3. Multiple cropping model (Sta. Maria. Bulacan) - Here the farmer engages in the production of three commodities. For Narciso Santiago, national outstanding farmer, his 2.5-ha farm produces frults, vegetables and rice. He has several heads of carabao and cattle grown on homelot, pastured between the orchard trees. A pond supplies irrigation, as it produces tilapia and mudfish. Why three commodities? It is because they are closely integrated. This is the key to natural farming where there are a number of products to be desired. First the animals produce, other than meat and milk, manure for the plants, the plants produce food for the family and market, and they together with their residues give feeds to the animals. The pond is source of irrigation for the plants, principally rice and vegetables. It is a waterhole for wildlife for biological control. Because of its integrated structure and management. the farm itself becomes a balanced system. This is the key to sustainable production. This is ecological. farming.
4. Sloping agricultural land technology or SALT (Bohol) Call this natural farming even if the farm is a logged area. Precisely the idea is for the farmer to return the land to its natural state as much as possible. How does he do it? If one sees the model, the land has a grade of 20 to 40 degrees. The steeper the grade the more difficult it is to apply the system. Over and above 45 degrees the model may not work at all.) Here the contour of the slope is marked and outlined so that the sole of the plow, so to speak, will be level at all times. The contours are spaced uniformly, and the rows which follow the contour are planted at interval of annual and permanent crops.
5. The idea is for the permanent crops like fruit trees and firewood trees to sandwich the annual crops like peanut, rice, corn vegetable. The herbage of, say ipil-ipil, is used as organic fertilizer. Neem tree is used for pesticide. Lantana is a natural pest repellant, so with Eucalyptus. Legume intercropping and crop rotation replenish the soil of Nitrogen.
6. Modified models (rice and corn areas). Rice farming can be modified to suit the conditions of natural farming. There are farms today that rely entirely on homemade or commercial organic fertilizers. These are contracted farms to supply organically grown rice.
An equally important aspect of successful farming is cleanliness. This means no weeds, trimmed waterways, properly disposed farm wastes, efficient drainage, well arranged rows, properly scheduled farming activities, and the like. All this requires but low technology that is also affordable, and contributes to good health to both producer and consumer, and the whole community.
Genetically resistant varieties are chosen. Proper time of planting and harvesting is needed. We should know that clean farms, healthy plants and good management, are basic. What we are saying is that the use of chemicals is dispensable. To a single farmer, this is easier said than done. There is a need for collective and community effort, in which case farming , especially if it intends to shift to organic, likewise becomes more efficient as cost of production can be brought down.
Coconut farms (Southern Tagalog and Bicol). Seldom do we hear of coconut cultivation that follows the agronomic practices of other major crops like sugar cane or corn.
Perhaps there is no plant more resistant than coconut. It is because it perfectly fits our soil, climate and latitude. It is indigenous to us. In fact it evolved with our islands and our culture. Evolutionarily and historically what I am saying is that natural farming is not new. And more importantly, it is a product of long years of development. It is not just acclimatization. It is co-evolution.
The message is that let us explore the richness of our biodiversity and our culture as a people to be able to understand the working of nature. Nature shows us the way. Nature, the way our ancestors knew then, is the nature we know today, except that we have embraced many changes in farming as well as in life style. Many of these changes had not passed the test of time.
In Laguna and Quezon, coconut is the dominant species of an ecosystem. The presence of man in the ecosystem has modified it to suit to his needs. For example, he has chosen only the trees and plants that grow between the coconut trees. Unknowingly he raises animals, which reduce the richness of plant species diversity.
We still see around well-established, stable coconut areas where man's intervention is kept low, but my fear is the current practice of logging old coconut trees for lumber.
Natural farming then is important as a way of farming. It is also important in sustaining economic production, and above all, the continuity of our ecosystems that we have placed in our hands. Given these premises the farmer today faces a new challenge worthy of the title, "the backbone of the nation." ~
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ANNEX - Edible Plants in Nature
Bagbagkong (Telosma cordata) flower buds
Papait (Mollogo oppositifolia), wild and cultivated
Gulasiman or ngalog (Ilk) Portulaca oleracea;
Edible fern (pako) Diplazium esculentum.
Soro-soro or Karimbuaya (Ilk) - Euphorbia neriifolia
Wild varieties of ampalaya (Momordica charantia), eggplant (Solanum melongena), patani (Phaseolus lunatus), and the male flower of himbaba-o or alukong (Ilk)
References: Living with Nature in Our Times, Food and Fertilizer Technology Center publications, Internet.
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