DA cites SoCot town for thriving organic farming program

GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Oct. 12 — The Department of Agriculture (DA) has chosen a farming municipality in South Cotabato as the country’s top implementer of sustainable organic farming initiatives.

Surallah Mayor Romulo Solivio said his town will receive on Tuesday the national award for the most outstanding organic farming initiative in recognition of their “best practices” in organic and biodynamic rice farming in the last five years.

He said the awarding rites will be held during the 6th National Organic Agriculture Conference slated October 13-15 in Naga City.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap was expected to grace the event, which was organized by DA’s Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Product Standards.

“This is a major achievement for us as it shows that we made the right decision to shift into organic farming and promote it as a way of life among our constituents,” Solivio said.

The mayor said they launched the town’s organic farming program in 2005 as an alternative to the rising costs of agricultural inputs and the area’s over-dependence to inorganic farming resources.

He said they adopted the organic and biodynamic farming system as a flagship initiative of the town’s Uswag (Progressive) Surallah Program.

“At our own level, we felt then the need to have our own program that will address the needs and concerns of our farmers, especially the high farming costs,” he said.

Solivio said during their initial consultations with local farmers, he said most of them complained of their declining income due to the high costs of fertilizers, seeds, pesticides and other inputs.

He said local farmers normally spend at least P16,000-P18,000 for every hectare of rice field per planting season but stressed that they sometimes earn only as much when harvest time comes due to problems on crop infestation.

Through the help of organic and biodynamic farming trainers from the Don Bosco training center in North Cotabato, the mayor said the local government immediately launched trainings and seminars for local farmers.

He said they later established a pilot program on organic rice production that yielded positive results for them.

“We were able to bring down the cost of production for palay production to P6,500-P8,000 per hectare. That mainly convinced the local government and our farmers to make a big push for organic farming,” he said.

So far, Solivio said the municipality has more than 1,000 hectares of farmlands devoted to organic rice farming and produces an average 70 to 80 cavans of rice per hectare.

He said at least 2,500 farmers have already committed to adopt the organic farming system in all 17 barangays of the municipality.

The town’s organic rice products, which has been adopted by the municipal government for the One Town, One Product (OTOP) program, is now being sold in various specialty markets and restaurant chains.

“More local farmers are currently shifting to organic farming because of the tremendous opportunities that it offer in terms of income. Not only that, they also like the benefits such practice provides to our environment,” he added. (PNA)

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