Support for organic agri program sought

The Senate Agriculture Committee has sought a countrywide support for the National Organic Agriculture Program to boost the export of organic agricultural products and improve their competitiveness in the $2.3-trillion aggregate Association of Southeast Asian Nations market.

The Philippines, despite being an agricultural country, has yet to achieve the goal of NOAP, where five percent of the country’s agricultural farms should have been converted last year to organic.

“Until now, the organic farms in the country are about three percent of all farms,’’ panel chairperson Sen. Cynthia A. Villar said.

Despite this, Villar said she is happy that there are many provinces that are taking initiatives to attain their own targets.

Villar explained that NOAP is the blueprint of the development and promotion of organic agriculture in the Philippines.

“It covers the promotion and commercialization of organic farming practices, cultivation and adoption of production and processing methods, capacity building of farmers, and the education of consumers, among others,’’ she explained.

Villar said she was recently invited to an organic festival in Sergio Osmena in Zamboanga del Norte where farmers are working on being 100 percent organic by 2020 or three years from now.