Organic farming pushed as part of RP's climate change strategy

MANILA, Philippines - Organic farming advocates are pushing for the promotion of organic farming as a climate change mitigation and adaptation strategy in the Philippines.

Oscar B. Zamora, a professor at the University of Los Baños (UPLB) Department of Agriculture and a convenor of Go Organic! Philippines, pointed out that organic farming or organic agriculture production systems are less prone to extreme weather conditions such as drought, flood and waterlogging.

Zamora, dean of the graduate school of the UPLB, said organic farming addresses key consequences of climate change, namely increased occurrence of extreme weather events, increased water stress, and problems related to soil quality.

“It (organic farming) reduces the vulnerability of the farmers to climate change and variability,” he explained.

Roland Cabigas, managing director of La Liga Policy Institute and a convenor of Go Organic! Philippines, said the group has been advocating for the massive conversion of conventional rice farms to organic farm sites to help address climate change.

He said the Philippines, remains highly vulnerable to climate change which adversely affects farm production as a result of extreme weather events such as typhoons, floods or agricultural drought.

“We need to rethink the way we do agriculture because it is already killing us,” Cabigas said.

As an adaptation strategy, organic farming, increases soil organic matter content, and hence higher water holding capacity making crops more resistant to drought conditions, Zamora said.

In a paper titled “Organic Agriculture as a Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Strategy,” Zamora identified some of the climate change resilient crops and potential substitute for rice during low rainfall periods.

These crops include avocado, carrot, cashew, common bean, corn, cowpea, eggplant, garlic, lablab bean, lesser yam, lettuce, mango, mungbean, mustard, okra, onion, pea, peanut, pechay, pepper, radish, sesame, sorghum, soybean, squash, sunflower, sweet potato, tomato, watermelon, and wax gourd.

By promoting the practice of biodiversity-based farming systems that increase the diversity of income sources and the flexibility to cope with adverse effects of climate change and variability, such as changing rainfall patterns, organic farming actually reduces the vulnerability of the farmers to climate change and variability, Zamora said.

He added that since organic farming is a low-risk farming strategy with reduced costs of external inputs, it lowers risks with partial or total crop failure due to extreme weather events or changed conditions in the wake of climate change and variability.

Organic farming also provides products that command higher prices via an organic certification system, he added.

Due to lower costs of production and higher selling prices, farmers can actually increase their income, thus the coping capacity of the farms is increased and the risk of indebtedness is lowered.