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System of Rice Intensification: Climate Tolerant Endemic Crop

JESUS LAS MARIAS is an advocate of System of Rice Intensification (SRI), a method of planting and growing rice that reduces costs, increases yields, and avoids the use of agrochemicals. It has been successfully tested in more than 40 countries, and in almost all regions of the Philippines. SRI-Pilipinas is the network that actively promotes SRI trials among Philippine farmers. The network, System of Rice Intensification Philippines, includes farmers, NGO workers, academes and government officials.

The ideal organic rice production technology is easy to follow. It costs less to apply and eliminates the use of chemicals. It makes the rice plant more prolific and more resistant to pests and diseases, and stronger to withstand calamities. The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is a climatesmart, agro-ecological methodology for increasing the productivity of rice by changing the management of plants, soil, water and nutrients. It follows the principles of early, quick and healthy plant establishment; reduced plant density; improved soil conditions through enrichment with organic matter; reduced and controlled water application; and preference for heirloom rice varieties, not genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or hybrid.

Rice production is constrained by climate change, growing population, declining land area, high cost of inputs and poor drainage and irrigation. The challenge of climate change is to produce more rice with less water and no chemicals. According to the Rice Sufficiency Master Plan of 2009 to 2013, to attain rice sufficiency, there must be improved and efficient irrigation; use of high-quality hybrid and inbred seeds; integrated and sustainable management; soft loans for STW and surface water pumps. There must also be delivery of extension support services; rice seed subsidy; and financing for farm and postharvest machinery.

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Organic Agriculture

Thank you for inviting me to participate in this event. I also convey the greetings of Archbishop Antonio Ledesma for the success of this undertaking and in the conduct of an objective social audit process of our concerns about the environment.

When Nina invited me to chair this session, I told her that I am not an expert on organic farming; but Nina said “don’t worry, just give an overview and help facilitate the discussions. There will be a
roomful of experts in attendance who will take care of the rest.” And those experts, my friends, are you. Before we start, may I propose the context of our deliberations today?

First, we are told that about 55 million years ago, in an event known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, a series of extreme global warming released massive carbon dioxide estimated at about 60,000 billion metric tons over thousands of years and it took a period of over 100,000 years to remove the excess from the atmosphere. Mother Earth survived but all or almost all life did not. In other words, whatever happens and whatever we do or not do, Mother Earth will ultimately survive. It is us and those who will come after us who will not. Of course we will do everything we can to spare Mother Earth the pain and injury of our making and will join and lead, if possible, the voices of other developing countries for international solidarity in the right solutions.

However, and this is my second point, as a lay observer of the processes and outcomes of international negotiations on economic and legal issues and now on climate change, I hope that those who went to Paris will not take offense when I say that I do not believe there is much to celebrate yet in the recent Paris talks. And that eventually, short- term national self-interest in a world of gross inequalities in power and wealth, will trump the longer-term general welfare of humanity. And when self-interest is rationalized with self-righteousness, it is even more difficult to overcome as we know from our own underperformance at human development and social change in our country.

Third, I submit that since global warming is a reality that sooner or later will result in dire consequences to the world in the likely event of a failure of international solidarity, as stewards of God’s creation in our part of the world, to carry out that responsibility in the best interests of our own country with the greatest caring for those who cannot protect or defend themselves. That is after all, is what social justice is all about. In that regard, we may have a chance at national solidarity since the rich and the powerful have experienced

the direct effects of climate change in common with the poor and may see national interest as also their own. In other words, by upholding their identity more than their self-interest, who knows, by successfully working together to mitigate and adapt to climate change, we may open the doors to addressing not just its direct effects but the systemic causes that also stand in the way of the radical social change we promised the poor so that we can finally put things right in our country.

It is in this context that I hope we will talk about organic agriculture today. The articulated objectives of organic agriculture are among the deepest concerns of the Green Convergence Coalition and are the standards to which we can hold accountable not just the present and succeeding governments, especially the Department of Agriculture and the NOAB (National Organic Agriculture Board), but also ourselves, namely:

a. Better farm income and sustainable livelihood—Increased farm productivity, reduced expenses on imported farm inputs, better income for farmers, and reduction of poverty in the rural sector;
b. Improved Health—Protected health for farmers, consumers, and the public in general;
c. Environmental Protection—Enhanced soil fertility and farm biodiversity, reduced pollution and destruction of the environment, as well as prevention of further depletion of natural resources;
d. Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience to Climate Change—Improved resiliency to disaster risks through diversification and less exposure to external inputs; and
e. Social Justice—Meeting the basic material needs and improving standard of living for all, upholding human rights, gender equality, labor standards, and the right to self-determination.

The Secretariat of the NOAB kindly briefed me on the program and I have asked that their powerpoint presentation and some other materials provided me be distributed to all the participants in our workshop today. I hope you got them and were able to familiarize yourselves with the official version of its history, objectives, the budgets since 2010, status of the programs and accomplishments to date, and its challenges, so I don’t have to dwell on these in detail. The new director of the program is also here today and can answer questions later.

I hope that those of you who may have a different appreciation from the official version of the facts, the issues and challenges ahead will share these with us during the deliberations so that we can have a balanced outcome report on this Summit.

After the passage of the law in 2010, the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, being the advisory body for science and technology policies and issues held a Round Table Conference to assess its status in the country. One of the papers1 that came out of this and the follow-up discussions had this to say about the state of organic agriculture in our country today which is a good frame for our discussions:
“Organic agriculture in its present state is still far from its full potential. Given the meager formal support throughout its supply chain, including input

1 How Sustainable Is Organic Agriculture in the Philippines? By Rodel G. Maghirang et al (Trans Nat Acad Sci & Tech (Philippines) Vol 33 (no. 2) ISSN 0115-8848)

supply, production and Research and Development on seeds, nutrient and pest management. Thus, direct comparison of organic agriculture with conventional agriculture does not appear to be valid. Overall, it is well accepted that organic agriculture is sustainable on the ecological aspect but sustainability on the financial and the social/cultural aspects are still being questioned. There is optimistic prognosis for organic agriculture, but the numerous challenges of agronomic, economic and cultural nature must be addressed more substantially. This would require long-term, support for research institutions, a strong extension system and a committed public in sharing with the costs of organic agriculture given its multi- functionality benefitting everyone.”

In the light of this assessment from experts, that is our task today. May I start it off with some preliminary questions to the experts in the room?

First: The target is to develop organic farming to five percent (5%) of our total agricultural lands or roughly 483,450 hectares, of which around 151,000 hectares, as of January 15, 2016, are already in place. If organic agriculture is the future of food security, competitiveness and sustainable agriculture, why is the target so small? Moreover, since the selected sites are primarily rooted in the private initiatives of farmers since the 1980s, the question is: Have these been validated in the light of later knowledge such as on vulnerabilities of the sites to climate change? Water needs of Organic Agriculture (OA)?

Second: Is the model we want to propagate that of small farms selling to their local communities? This is consistent with the findings of the IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) that the future of global food security is some 450 million small farms of less than 2 hectares each in the world. That is also the model of our agrarian reform program with certain admissible permutations like cooperatives to address economic scale considerations.

Third: How important is the expensive 3rd party certification in the domestic market, of which there are only 46 farms and establishments covering 1,212 hectares, since government subsidy is only planned for 3 years?

Fourth: What are the nutritional advantages of organic agriculture and are these sufficient to justify the price differential between organic and non-organic products? Are the prices today of organic products within the reach of the non-farmer poor? Is it possible to put organic products within their reach as factors like regenerated soil and supply chain inputs materialize?

Fifth: Are the organizational and operational challenges that have arisen since 2010 being addressed? Delays in implementing guidelines, issues of continuity and institutional memory (6 heads in 5 years of the Secretariat, 11 out of 12 of its staff are contractual and co-terminus with the president).

Is there convergence with the DENR and the DAR and its 2.7 million farmer beneficiaries of which about half are not in Agrarian Reform Communities (ARCs)? Is there a political commitment at the LGU level and do they have the capable extension workers to carry it out?

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May Bigas Na! May Ulam Na! May Ganansya Na! Maka Kalikasan Pa! Enhancing Organic Rice and Duck Industry though Integrated Rice Duck Farming System (IRDFS)

Integrated Rice-Duck Farming System (IRDFS) is a method of growing rice and ducks together in an irrigated field. It benefits organic rice production in several ways. The movement of the ducks in the rice field helps it to produce more grains. The duck manure can be used as fertilizer eliminating the need for chemical fertilizers. Ducks serve as natural pest control; they eat harmful insects and weeds like the golden snail. The meat and egg from ducks enhances the country’s food security; it can be a source of additional income for farmers.

The IRDFS reduces production cost by as much as 30 percent. It also impacts health and the environment. According to studies, ducks in rice fields reduces greenhouse gas emissions from methane as it eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers, synthetic pesticides, and herbicides. Furthermore, ducks eat schisto-carrying snails that bring schistosomiasis, a disease affecting farmers and their families that occur in select areas of the country.

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Sustainable Integrated Organic & Natural Mini-Farm Program: An Initiative for Food Self-sufficiency, Poverty Alleviation and Environmental Renewal

A 1,000 sqm mini-farm model is a food-self sufficient and self-generating income. Livelihood income can be generated from the animals and crops while the composting of crops and manures will be able to sustain the fertility of the soil. It can also stabilize microclimate through the windbreak. Also it can diversify itself into having a multi-purpose hall for activities, organic market and accommodations; agrotourism for discovery and learning activities within the farm and a community herb/garden for gardening learning activities.

Each mini-farm features an intensive farming scheme consisting of a natural (odorless) piggery, free-range chicken coop, a fish pond, propagation and nursery, vegetable production, a kitchen/medicinal garden, and a small farmer’s house – all contained in a 1,000 square meter lot area. It can also have its own fruit strips wherein it can be for the farmer’s consumption or can also be added for income and border strips that can attract beneficial insects. A place within the farm can also be allotted for a meditation or sanctuary area for a place to rest or meditate.

The 1,000 sqm mini farm can be expanded into a community or commercial production version measuring to a 1/2 hectare area. The mini farm does not only produce and generate income but it can also be a place to become a sustainable community cluster and possibly to become an eco-village.

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Sustainable Agriculture for Food Security

Somehow we neglected the fact that healthy environment is necessary for healthy people. We’ve externalized the environment as if it was something outside us. But food is what connects the earth and our bodies. When we destroy the earth, we are destroying our health. We are destroying our economies.

I witnessed this over the last three (3) decades in my beloved country, India. And you are witnessing it in the Philippines. We share similar histories of small peasant agriculture trying to stay autonomous, sovereign, with an imperial part trying to take our freedom away. Today, of course, the imperial parts are the giant corporations colonizing every culture, every economy, everybody, every organism.

My work on saving seeds began because I believe life is about self- organization and therefore about freedom. The idea of corporations owning life, creating life is just so wrong; and so we create open pollinated community seed banks. In these many years of working with peasants in India, doing ecological agriculture research, we’ve found that the more bio-diversed the agriculture is, which is what small peasants practice, the more health it gives us. My research has also shown that today’s seventy-five percent (75%) of the planet’s destruction is directly related to the way we produce our food through industrial agriculture models and globalized trading systems ensured the world trade organization rules which should never have been accepted by any country because they were written by the giant corporations to maximize their control, maximize their profits. But in the process we have lost 92% of all our vegetable diversity, more than 80% of all our crop diversity. We have lost our soils, their health, and the living organisms. We have depleted water because these systems are very, very irrigation-intensive. And the water that leaves the farm is now contaminated with pesticides and nitrogen. Nitrate contamination is destroying our drinking water. It is destroying life in our water bodies and in the oceans, actually creating dead zones. And that same nitrogen fertilizer, that goes up to the atmosphere contributing to nitrogen oxide which is 300 times more deadly than carbon dioxide, is a greenhouse gas.

My book, Soil Not Oil, was an exploration of how turning to the soil can help us deal with climate change. Ignoring the soil and pretending that soil’s life can be substituted by chemicals, that illusion has contributed 50% of climate change. Where you have been victims of the cyclone Haiyan, we have been victims of the Orissa Super Cyclone of Nargis, Aila and they keep coming. They’re not going to go away unless we change the way we produce our food.

While destroying the environment, our farmers are being destroyed. India today has the tragic story of 300,000 farmers who committed suicide. In fact, I am in the land which is the capital of suicides in India, Marathwada. This is also the area where the highest acreage is under Bt cotton. Bt cotton is mainly designed for collecting royalties. Its effectiveness in controlling pests has totally failed. Even the government recognizes it. There are court cases going on right now about the super royalties collected for a failed technology between the government of India and the giant company, Monsanto.

Three hundred thousand (300,000) lives sacrificed? So companies can make huge money through toxins which are also destroying our health? More than 75% of all diseases today are called lifestyle diseases. What is honestly should be referred to as food-related diseases because that is the core-competent of what is destroying our competency lifestyles. Whether you look at cancer or you look at diabetes, and explosion on obesity or you look at hypertension and cardiac problems or you look at neurological disorders, the explosion in autism, Alzheimer’s and other diseases related to neurological degeneration, all of them are related to assaulting our bodies, not with nourishment, not with healthy food but with a toxic cocktail that the body cannot handle, synthetic molecules that our body does not know how to deal with. High-fructose corn syrup put into everything – sweetened, not sweet- taken out of corn which is GMO. You fought against the Golden Rice. Such a fake offer to solving the Vitamin A deficiency problem! It is hundreds of times less efficient than the biodiversity you can grow in the Philippines, we are growing in India.

The future is so clearly a choice between two paths. A path which will kill the planet, has already destroyed the planet 75% with 10% more increase in this toxic food supply system. We would have a dead planet! There’s no life in a dead planet! There’s no food in a dead planet! That system is also creating disease. The same companies that sell us the agri-chemicals are selling the pharmaceuticals also patented for them. It is a win-win- win. What is happening right now is health gets destroyed, they sell more drugs, they make more money.

We have another option. That option is the convergence of looking to producing healthy food as the first objective. We just launched a campaign against the import of GMO soya, which has overtaken our diets, to bring back our wonderful oil: seeds of sesame, groundnut, mustard, and coconut and linseed have so much more benefits. The false researches that these companies can buy, talked about our soils having cholesterol! No plant gives cholesterol. Cholesterol build up happens because of the imbalance in the diet.

What we are witnessing is ignorance – lies being sold in the name of science and public relations. That future where we don’t know what we’re eating. We don’t know what it is doing to our bodies. We are not allowed to know what is done to the planet: Fifteen percent (15%) of all greenhouse gases are coming from trashing the planet, for soya expansion in Latin America, palm expansion in East Asia. All of it is unnecessary because our small farms could produce better, healthier food. That’s the choice we must make through the true green convergence. On our small farms which are more productive, which produce more nutrition per acre, more health per acre, which give our farmers more wealth per acre, ten times more is what we witnessed with farmers when they have their own seeds, who don’t use chemical inputs and who practice fair trade and just trade. We have to build sustainable economies which are the only kind of economies that can sustain us.

Gandhi gave us three words that should be our direction for creating sustainable and green economies. He talked about Swadeshi which means both local living economies as well as making ourselves. We’ve got to start making our seeds again. We’ve got to start growing our food again. We’ve got to start processing and cooking our food. We’ve got to start taking control of the economy. Swadesh, self-organization – the nature of life that is self-organization, everything living- is intelligent. Everything living is self- organized and every living economy we build has to be a self-organized community, a self- organized solidarity economy, generating more wealth, circulating more wealth so there is no poverty.

In addition, he gave us the word Satyagraha, the force of truth. I have practiced it since this bombardment of toxic foods started in India. It means the willingness and courage to say no to unjust laws, to injustice, and to lies and untruth, flawed force. With our power, with our non-violent power, we can unleash our energies to change the system.

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