The interest in organic agriculture among rural and urban farmers is reaching fever pitch. The 2005 training benefited 1,489 individuals (almost 200% from 2004) and expanded in more communities. Newly-trained growers included not only rural farmers but Bacolod City’s poor, local government units, government agencies, NGOs, civic groups, private and government personnel. Two major organizations trained were Kaisampalad, a national network advocating fair trade and food security composed of four NGOs and the Department of Social Services and Development (DSSD).

For the same year, the number of farmers and sugar workers trained was 145 exceeding the target of 100. They came from poor sugar plantations in Maao, Bago; Cabacungan, La Castellana and Moises Padilla and also from indigenous people’s of San Cárlos and Salvador Benedicto and upland farmers of Amayco and Mahogany, Murcia,.

The majority, over 900, are urban poor, including the blind, who learned barangay-based urban organic gardening and container farming as a poverty alleviation project of the Department of Social Services and Development with local fund counterpart from the Office of the Bacolod City Mayor. They combined ecological solid waste management with trench and container farming using recycled containers (old sacks, plastic bags, old tires, pots, pans, and so forth).

Nineteen barangays of Bacolod City provided the space for the village-level demonstration and seed production of organic food crops. Also trained were street children and children in conflict with the law under the custody of the Social Development Center, and senior citizens.

The rest are FS members learning about natural farming and organic vegetables production. With the formal declaration by the two local provincial governments of Negros, many more groups that sent letters of requests for organic training to BIND couldn’t be accommodated.

On the other hand, the promotion of the organic version of system on rice intensification (SRI) continued and ecological pest management (EPM) in BIND's new areas.

For 2005, 21 farmers attended a season-long School in the Ricefield and SRI in Mahogany, Murcia. Other stakeholders include the Philippine National Oil Company and some personnel of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. They spent for the food and provided space for the ecological pest management and demo farm. BIND was responsible for the training staff, supplies and training materials. A short SRI course was held in Iloilo with multi-sectoral participation: health workers, local government officials, church workers, farmers and NGOs.

Community-based field researches were priority activities that BIND implemented in 2005. The objective was to deepen the scientific knowledge and skills of 40 local farmers. Most were couples, women and men, whose interest in the science of organic farming and organic agriculture grows by the day. Eleven farmers from Bago, La Carlota, Cadiz and Calatrava carried out SRI researches in their respective communities.

Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
(World Food Summit 1996)

BIND was a major sponsor of the protest concert against hunger during the Masskara celebration and launching of Negros Organic Food Island of Asia.

Rex Anthony San José drives home a point about rainforestation in the expansion area of Lanipga, Murcia. The approach conserves forests, provides food security and cash crops to increase incomes.

Robert Gasparillo explores the internal quality control systems of a German organic dairy plant.

 

ORGANIC
a g r i c u l t u r e

FOOD SECURITY




Jovi Tupas supervises Bacolod’s urban poor who made their own composts.