Sustainability: Organic farming, conventional rice farming

SUSTAINABILITY is the responsibility to conserve natural resources and protect global ecosystems to promote health and well-being. On account of the fact that so many decisions that impact the environment are not immediately felt, a key element of sustainability is its forward-looking nature. Thus, sustainability is the practice of using natural resources responsibly so that they can support both present and future generations.

Organic farming

For some international agriculture experts, ecological scientistsand agribusiness executives, organic farming can feed the world. They believe that a large-scale shift to organic farming will not only increase the world’s food supply but could also be the way to eradicate hunger.

It is a well-known fact that organic farmers despise the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizer and other means that have become synonymous with high-yield agriculture. Instead, they depend on raising animals for manure, or making compost and other sources of fertilizer that cannot be manufactured in a chemical plant but are instead grown with the concomitant consumption of land, water and other resources.

Since organic farmers cannot use synthetic pesticides, one can imagine their fields suffering from crop-munching insects and plant-choking weeds. As a result, a world dependent on organic farming would have to farm more land than it does today even if it would mean less pollution, fewer abused farm animals and lesser carcinogenic residues in our vegetables. Take note that farmers who converted to organic farming production often encounter lower yields in the first few years, as the soil and surrounding biodiversity recover from years of abusive use of chemicals. It takes many seasons for farmers to improve or perfect a new approach.

Furthermore, an organic farmer might consider altering his crop rotation — planting a crop that will resist the pest or one that will attract its predators. This requires experimentation and long-term planning.

Be that as it may, organic farming yields benefits. Studies have demonstrated, for example, that the “external” costs of organic farming — erosion, chemical pollution to drinking water, death of birds and other wildlife — are just one-third of those of conventional farming. Surveys also show that organic farms support many more species of birds, wild plants, insects and other wildlife than conventional farms. There is even evidence that crops grown organically have considerably higher levels of healthenhancing antioxidants.

But, on the other hand, challenges to organic farming surface. For example, water will admittedly become a scarce resource in the near future. Water needed for increased agricultural production to feed a growing population will mainly have to come from green water (for instance, soil moisture used by plants and returned as vapor flow as compared to blue water which comes from rivers and streams). Poor soil maintenance naturally follows declining water availability.

All this brings into focus the matter of how to produce food. Organic farming advocates claim the world can feed itself without relying on fossil fuel-based inputs, i.e., pesticides, synthetic fertilizer, etc. But, on the other hand, more issues easily surface like man’s general affinity to nature — the broader sustainability concerns, including biodiversity conservation for food security and, in general, maintaining ecosystem services.

Actually, worldwide, there are two views on food security. The first argues that food supply problems are best solved by the use of new technologies and production methods. If farmers use modern seeds (e.g., GMOs or genetically modified organisms) sufficiently and time their harvests properly, there would be more than enough food for everyone. This is the view of multinational corporations and governments of rich countries. The second view demands an appropriate socioeconomic environment that would allow farmers to supply enough food for themselves and their families, and the markets. Civil society organizations, religious and humanitarian aid agencies as well as grassroots movements in developing countries tend to promote this approach.

In the final analysis, can organic farming feed the world?

Conventional rice farming

The Philippines could be an example for conventional rice farming, with almost 12 million Filipinos out of a population of 110 million relying on the production of rice as staple food. Despite the pandemic, the country’s agricultural sector declined the least. The bigger problem affecting rice yields is climate change. Strong typhoons damaged the country’s rice lands in the past 10 years. In the year 2020 alone, 23

typhoons hit the Philippines.

Among Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, the Philippines is the most vulnerable to natural disasters brought about by climate change. The islands are seriously making use of adaptation, mitigation and resilience techniques to counter the onslaught of strong destructive winds, heavy rains and serious flooding that obstruct rice production. Decades of uncontrolled deforestation, among others, brought forth unsteady rice yields from time to time.

Rice has been part of the Filipino meal — breakfast, lunch and dinner, and even snacks in-between in the form of sweetened rice in various concoctions. Rice, after undergoing a series of processes, produces rice straw which can be used as fuel for cooking, livestock feed and fertilizer. Brown rice and rice bran oil are used as medicine or remedies, especially for skin and gastrointestinal ailments.

As previously mentioned, rice farming is the source of livelihood for many Filipino farmers. The Philippine Statistics Authority survey lists 11.5 million Filipinos are engaged in conventional rice farming. Except for some of the wet-rice agriculture in the terraces of the Cordilleras on Luzon Island, a few indigenous tribal areas, and Covid pandemic-driven plantitos and plantitas, organic farming is not generally practiced despite Republic Act (RA) 10068, or the “Organic Agriculture Act of 2010.”

The primary government agency exercising authority over the rice sector is the Department of Agriculture (DA). It is responsible for implementing programs promoting the production of rice with the end in view of increasing rice yields and attaining rice self-sufficiency. A Philippine Rice Research Institute under the DA helps develop high-yielding and cost reducing technologies so farmers can produce enough rice for all Filipinos.

The organizational structure of the rice sector is further enhanced by a Bureau of Soils and Water Management; Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority; National Food Authority; and a National Irrigation Administration.

Fortunately, an International Rice Research Institute funded by the Rockefeller Foundation is based in the Philippines. It is dedicated to providing solutions to poverty and hunger among the world population that depend on rice-based agri-food systems. It aims to improve the welfare of rice farmers and consumers, and promote environmental sustainability as well in a world challenged by climate change. It maintains a Rice Gene Bank of climate-changeadapting rice varieties that were made more tolerant to heat, drought, salinity and submergence in water.

Erratic weather

The erratic weather and climate that the world is experiencing is not only about increased carbon dioxide and temperature levels, and frequency of extreme weather events. It is also about the sea-level rise that is being felt now and which increases flood risk and salinity intrusion in rice-growing environments. Be it noted that one of the effects of temperature increase is drought, causing the soil to harden due to evaporation of water, making the land impossible to grow rice.

In this connection, it is also noted that water is the key ingredient in the production of rice. Reduced investment in irrigation infrastructure, increased competition for water and large water withdrawals from underground water sources lower the sustainability of rice production. Likewise, there must be an initiative to protect the quantity and quality of our waters.

In this regard, the Philippines is not wanting in environmental legislation to solve the problems, issues and concerns related to conventional rice farming brought about by climate change as exemplified by RA 9275, or the “Clean Water Act of 2004”; RA 8749, or the “Clean Air Act of 1999”; RA 2094, or the “Rice and Corn Production Act of 1958”; Presidential Decree 1947 Encouraging the Production of Rice, Corn and other Priority Crops; and Administrative Order 25 on the Adoption of Hybrid Technology as Strategy to Achieve Rice Sufficiency.

What is needed is effective implementation and enforcement of those laws as tools to put order in a society beset by environmental problems that hamper steady rice production. By preventing the worsening air and water conditions in the country, we will be able to reduce the increase in temperature due to climate change and the consequent increase in the intensity of typhoons that affect rice yields. This implies that food security and the climate crisis must be tackled together for the reason that they are not distinct but two aspects of one crisis.

We have to save the rice sector and all other aspects of Philippine agriculture through laws, institutional arrangements and mechanisms already in place.