The government through the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) pushed the One Town: One Product (OTOP) project in municipalities/cities nationwide, as part of the initiative to provide engines of growth for urban and rural entrepreneurs. It was launched in 2004 as a priority program to promote competitive advantage of each region, cities/municipalities on their best product and unique skills of local workers, said Philomena T. Valencia, of DTI Aklan.
Makato mayor, Hon. Ramon S. Legaspi, Jr. implemented the Maunlad Supervised Organic Farming Project (MSOFP) with organic rice as its OTOP. Organic rice varieties particularly grown organically are highly favored abroad and given a premium price in the global market. These include all Masipag varieties, Sinampaguita, Sinandomong, Milagrosa, Denorado, Maligaya Selections, UPLE Ri 5 & 7, Manumbaeay and Pamintana.
But how can we produce said organic rice from these farms depleted of organic matters and polluted with inorganic inputs like chemical fertilizer and pesticides for many years?
The wonderful Creator instructed man to choose good knowledge despite he was given a mind with free will to select good or evil. Choose good to be healthy and gain life full of joy eternally; or choose evil to be unhealthy, leading to death. But man, being rebellious, he practices both good and evil knowledge. Deadly poisonous chemicals were used to kill targeted insect pests as chemical warfare is a fact of life for centuries. More than 50,000 known commercial chemicals are man’s weapon against crop destroying insect pests. Some billion pounds of poisonous chemicals polluted the earth’s air, water, soil, living plants and animals. These deadly poisonous chemicals not only affect intended pests but everyone, everybody including all beneficial organisms that are farmers’ allies. But still most are dependent on inorganic inputs. Is it possible to survive if we quit using inorganic inputs? Yes! Many farmers – small and large – are successfully doing it! They are environment friendly farmers.
Dressing and keeping mother earth, man’s way (inorganic) for centuries caused environmental degredation. Poor, depleted, imbalance nutrient, almost zero organic matter including beneficial microorganisms left in the soil, produces inferior and unhealthy plants and animals. Man develops crop varieties including hybrids that consume great amount of major nutrients having trace elements in the soil that make it imbalance and poisonous to succeeding crops. These are the result of not abiding with God’s law on agriculture, called Natural Farming system (NFS) and Organic Farming.
Our government is spending millions of pesos for agricultural research conducted at farmers’ field and laboratories. Among beneficiaries were farmers of Brgy. Tibiawan, Libang, Agbalogo, Dumga, Calimbajan with outreach station at Brgy. Tina. Approved technology tested at farmers’ field for adoption are Crop Rotation cropping pattern both lowland and upland rice; Crop-Livestock Integration; multi-cropping (coconut based) sloping Agricultural Land Technology; all resulted to conclusion with increased return on investment (ROI). These made national planners in the mid 1980s to drastically change/phase –out RP-German Crop Protection Program to Masagana 99 cost reduction technology to totally eliminate inorganic inputs in the country. Our national leaders firmly believed that nations like Japan, Germany, USA dump their wastes out of their territories to our country at the expense of our government in the form of loan/grant-in-aid.
Among these wastes are deadly poisonous chemicals disguised in the name of RP German Crop Protection Program but in fact a grave hazard to environment.
Due to enumerable miseries brought about by unhealthy food produced from inorganic inputs, the late Gov. Corazon L. Cabagnot during her term in the late 1980s, appealed to all Brgy. Captains and mayors provincewide to support the project on rapid composting as organic fertilizer was her long desire to be realized for use by farmers.
A series of seminars/trainings were conducted on NFS under integrated community development (ICD) for Aklan organized and implemented by the Development Academy of the Philippines Visayas (DAPV) in cooperation with the Local Government of Aklan (LGU-Aklan), Aklan State University, LGU-Banga, LGU-Malay and LGU-Makato. Hundreds of farmer leaders and personnel of municipal agricultural services attended the trainings.
The NFS technology is characterized as a low input usage with high outputs agricultural production process. It also improves degraded farm lands due to the abusive usage of chemical inputs. The use of natural inputs like indigenous microorganisms (IMO) revives soil nutrient and speeds up soil composting. Makato is producing ORGANIC RICE as its OTOP which is being produced with the use of NFS/organic inputs, the products of which are safer to eat and deserve high market price.
Besides NFS technology, the Makato municipal agricultural services promote natural soil conservation/restoration through vermi- composting, rapid composting and cover cropping. Eager to produce organic rice as soon as possible, Mayor Ramon Legaspi, Jr. solicited the full support of Sagana 100 Philippines, Inc. a known producer of organic fertilizer demanded to produce organically grown high value crops. /MP mailto:madyaas_pen@yahoo.com
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