Shift to Sustainable Agriculture. The Liberating Force

Even with formidable armed forces, a country that has no ecological security is not secured at all. After losing 17 million hectares of natural forest in just a century, there is no stopping now the rampaging waters that wreak havoc on anything it finds in its path, be it life, limb, or property. As the forest ecosystem goes, so goes our ecological security, not to mention our mega-diversity that has evolved for millions of years yet has vanished from the face of the earth in a “wink of an eye” in the evolutionary period.

There is now this brewing outrage against those who have sacrificed Mother Nature to the altar of greed and profit. The logging industry, despite amassing $48 billion (ADB Report) from 1970-1988, in the same period, had only contributed from 0.5%-1.3% to the total government revenue. The sins of a few loggers in shameless connivance with those who are tasked to protect the forests, are now visited upon our people.

Unknown to many, there is an equally outrageous un-relentless, and systematic plunder of our agricultural resource base, a silent war that massacres life forms with subtle impunity, hideous as it is diabolical. If, indeed, the way to hell is paved with good intentions, this is it. It is pursued in the guise of erasing hunger yet it impoverishes farming communities. It is done in the name of food security to increase agricultural productivity, yet, it attacks and destroys our very means of life – our agricultural lands and all micro-organisms and beneficial insects thereat, stripping our soils of their natural fertility.

It has tied up our peasantry to a mode of production that is beyond their control and has fettered them into a multi-layered marketing system that makes a mockery and cheapens their labor.

Its name is Conventional Agriculture which has given way to a dominant market-oriented industrial agriculture pursued by the agri-business sector. That agricultural system is anchored on planting cash crops to satisfy the market, and increase production through chemical farming using HYVs (high-yielding varieties) including GMOs (genetically modified organisms). It subsists through the support of Agri-chemical giants and big biotechnology firms. Their objective is to produce food not for self-sufficiency, not to meet the needs of the local communities but to produce crops with market value to sell in the world market.

Without ecological security, our country now teeters on another balance that may spell our doom if not averted – the loss of our food security. Such a fatal blow should be avoided at all costs by now hastening the long-awaited shift to an alternative agricultural paradigm that trusts in the innate processes of nature called sustainable agriculture. This is being promoted by cooperatives, non-government and people’s organizations and by small farming communities based on the firm belief that farming must belong to the communities; that the people should combat poverty by having access and control of land and resources, including appropriate technologies which must heal the blighted land back to life, seriously degraded by conventional agriculture.

These advocates of sustainable agriculture have debunked the fallacies hurled against them by walking the talk, showing that natural, organic, ecological, and bio-dynamic farming can indeed reduce poverty in rural areas. They have proven that these natural farming practices have reduced production costs and have enhanced soil fertility. Through the years, they have established a more stable agricultural production system and have produced organic products that command higher prices in the market. All told, they have an advanced sustainable agriculture system that is improving the well-being of poor farmers and empowering rural communities.

Without an iota of doubt, sustainable agriculture is the liberating force that will unfetter the farmers from the vicious cycle of poverty. It is that farming paradigm that cultivates not only the land but also the human spirit, to nurture principles and values worthy to be true stewards of God’s creation.