THE initiative of the Department of Agriculture (DA) to amend Republic Act 10068, or the Organic Agriculture Act of 2010 to include the implementation of participatory guarantee system (PGS) is seen as a stepping stone to scale up organic farmers in the province.
Ramon Uy Jr., president of Organik na Negros Organic Producers and Retailers Association (Onopra), said they are looking at PGS as complementary to the third party guarantee system.
Uy said it will impact positively especially to small organic farmers who sell directly to local markets since they cannot afford the third party system.
“It is a stepping stone for the organic farmers who are also preparing to scale up,” the Onopra official said, adding that PGS is highly endorsed by the International Federation of Organic Movement (Ifoam), an umbrella organization, which Onopra has been coordinating with in pushing for the PGS program.
Ifoam has cited PGS as a locally focused quality assurance system. It certifies producers based on active participation of stakeholders and are built on a foundation of trust, social networks, and knowledge.
Agriculture Undersecretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, who was in Bacolod City recently, said the system will serve as alternative to the third party certification.
Puyat said a lot of farmers have been complaining of the high cost of certification thus, with PGS they hope more farmers will be covered since it will obviously lower the cost of certification.
“This will be more responsive to the needs of our small organic farmers as it enables direct participation of producers, consumers and other stakeholders,” she added.
Uy, however, said that Onopra is supporting both participatory guarantee and third party guarantee systems.
PGS is difficult for some farmer-producers in Negros who are selling in Malaysia and Singapore or even Manila and Cebu since they are not that known to the market.
This is where the third party should come in, Uy said, adding that the latter will guarantee in behalf of the producers. He said this system could only work for the organized or scaled up ones.
Moreover, amid the rapid industry growth, Onopra asserted that organic should not be regulated but rather be promoted.
The organization has realized how broken the country’s food system is.
Organic farmers are required traceability, documentation, inspection, and are burdened of paying high cost when in fact they are the ones who provide healthy food, protect environment, and provide fair prices to organic producers, it said.
“Those that should be regulated are the conventional farmers who are free to spray chemicals polluting the environment without paying any of the hidden costs and nobody monitors them,” Uy added.