PETITION AMENDING THE ORGANIC AGRICULTURE ACT OF 2010 (RA 10068)

In 2010, the Philippine government passed the Organic Agriculture Act (OAA) or Republic Act (RA) 10068, supposedly to address growing concerns over ecology by promoting sustainable agriculture practice through organic farming. Five years after, however, organic practices have remained peripheral. Meanwhile the OAA has been widely criticized for only having expanded the scope of commercial monopolies and aggravated the exclusion of indigenous and community-shared knowledge. It has generally negated the objectives of sustainable agriculture, according to farmers’ organizations, sustainable agriculture advocates, and consumer groups.

Three things wrong with the OAA:

1.  The main criticism against the OAA is its failure to recognize and allow other certification systems such as first party and second party certification. The only certification allowed is the third party certification, which is expensive and is marginalizing to small farmers. The law also prohibits labelling products “organic” without third party certification.

Third party certification can cost a minimum of Php40,000 per year. Guidelines and process can be stringent. The entire process after submission of the application form up to the result of the application takes about one month. The farmer has to prepare a ton of paper works, and the cost can get as high as Php80,000.00. Certification has to be renewed yearly, apart from the rule that each crop must be certified.

2.  Funding is limited, proposal-based and may be caught in the same bureaucratic web that is greatly influenced by local politics. Organic agriculture gets 2% of the Department of Agriculture (DA) budget, which can be supplemented by loans and grants applied for by the National Organic Agriculture Board (NOAB). However, the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the OAA clearly shows that the government has heavily depended on the farmers to pursue organic farming on their own and submit proposals to their provincial agriculture officer (PAO) who shall then propose to the DA regional field units (RFUs). This is problematic in two things: 1) only farmers and their organizations that can rationalize proposals, ranging from Php1 million to Php10 million, have the capacity to submit such proposals, and 2) approval largely depends on the coordination of the PAO and RFU, which is oftentimes influenced by local politics.

3.  The OAA falls short in grasping the significant role of sustainable and organic farming in rural development.  The overall tone of the law focuses on producing organic products for export in the same profit-oriented framework of chemical-dependent agriculture as opposed to addressing the country’s food security and self-sufficiency. It continues to ignore the current context of rural monopolies.

In a more fundamental sense, the OAA is negated by the DA’s programs that encourage conventional or inorganic farming methods such as giving subsidies for balanced fertilization, chemical farming and use of fertilizers as well as the promotion of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The present organic agricultural program is also seen as being more focused on input substitution (for example, replacing chemical fertilizers with organic fertilizers), instead of making food production sustainable.

Green Action PH seeks your support to make the OAA genuinely responsive to the needs of small organic farmers and consumers. Please sign this petition to push for amendments to the OAA.

https://greenactionph.wordpress.com/2015/12/30/why-should-we-eat-and-buy-organic/