The Opportunities and Challenges of GREEN Agriculture in the ASEAN: Focus on the Philippines

Teodoro Mendoza

Issue Date

10-2015

Abstract

In the 2008 declaration on the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint, the specific provisions and action plans on Food, Agriculture and Forestry focus on the enhancement of intra- and extra-ASEAN trade and long term competitiveness of ASEAN food, agriculture and forestry products/commodities; promoting cooperation, joint approaches and technology transfer among member nations and international/regional organizations and private sector and finally, promoting ASEAN agricultural cooperatives as a means to empower small farmers and enhance their market access, competitiveness and network linkages between and among cooperatives in the region. What is the role of, and the corresponding opportunities and challenges in, sustainable, organic and ecological farming systems or simply Green Agriculture under this AEC regime and transformation process in the agricultural sector of the Philippines and ASEAN? The shift and transition from conventional brown agriculture to green agriculture is a complex and dynamic process. Per FAO definition, Food Security clearly specifies the access of all people at all times to available, adequate, affordable, safe, nutritious, and health promoting foods grown in a sustainable and environment friendly manner for the benefit of present and future generation of people globally, regionally and nationally. The role of green agriculture clearly satisfies all the definitional criteria of food security, especially the production of, and access to, nutritious, safe and health promoting food in an environmentally benign and sustainable manner Unfortunately, such safe and health food and environmentally sustainable aspects of food security cannot be provided nor satisfied by the conventional and chemical- and GMO- based agriculture systems.. The unevenness in the state of agricultural and economic development within ASEAN and the rest of the world influences the level of sustainable versus unsustainable technologies, capital, labor, logistics, management, financing, logistics and policy support and regulatory reform systems as well public goods investments within and across the value chain of each and combination of commodities and products of different countries. These must be addressed nationally and regionally within the ASEAN countries. The government and the private sector along with the civil society organizations and donor community must join hands in assisting the small farmers and family farms and fisher folks and forest dwellers in carrying the whole burden of shifting process of conversion from conventional chemical-based agriculture (killing fields or dead soils) to science and technology-based organic and ecological farming systems (living soils farming systems). These include indigenous, natural and science-based organic agriculture technologies and best practices. The stoppage of land and soil degradation due to continuous application of toxic chemicals and inorganic fertilizers and soil fertility restoration requires political will, policy reforms and public investments. Indeed, soil fertility restoration is material-, labor-, knowledge- information- and skills- as well as logistics-intensive interventions that require public investments and supporting budgets from the concerned cross-sector agencies and bottom-up-budgeting at the grassroots and community and Local Government levels. Shifting the gear to consumer- and demand-led promotions of organic and ecological agriculture, as in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in USA and Europe and Tekei (producer-consumer linkage) scheme in Japan and Korea, makes good sense. While the build-up of consumer awareness and consciousness is important, we need to ascertain and confirm the willingness of the consumers to directly support the organic farmers. This partnership in shortened and streamlined value chain must be translated in the willingness of consumers and direct product users like restaurants, caterers and processors and other institutional buyers to invest and buy their daily and weekly food needs or raw material requirements at the right price of the organically grown products. Finally, re-greening the Philippine and ASEAN agriculture will definitely contribute to climate resiliency and climate change mitigation and adaptation measures since the major emitters of greenhouse gases (carbon, methane gas and nitrous oxides) come from conventional and chemical agriculture of transnational agribusiness giants. Their “economics and business of greed” influence must be significantly reduced in order to avert further exacerbating effects of chemical and GMO-based agriculture on global warming and polluted ecosystems. The re-greening process requires massive information, education and communication support to Local Government Units and community-based family farms and cooperatives in accessing technology and best organic farming and processing practices; operationalizing agribusiness and agro-based development services and access to markets as well as comprehensive agricultural extension and training assistance to small scale family farms; providing adequate, affordable and timely financial assistance or credit/investment support to farmers and fisher folks and finally, providing direct subsidy and complete social security and protection to small holder farmers, farmhands and fisher folks in terms of direct access to social services like health, social security, housing and education and in linking poverty reduction subsidies and measures to emergency and continuing employment, livelihood and enterprise building, especially during disaster relief and rehabilitation and incidences of El Nino and El Nina weather/climate aberrations.

Document Type

Article

Language

English

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