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“The kind of knowledge we get from universities or even our agriculturists is like a particular kind of education that is tied to corporate interests,”



But meeting the farmers, as Tan says, requires more than interest or capital. Most farmers are into conventional farming methods (which includes the use of chemical pesticides), and these are less labor-intensive than natural or organic farming, and bring in more profit at lesser costs. Convincing these farmers to plant using natural methods, as to yield organic produce, is akin to dancing the cha-cha, says Espital.

Espital recounts the first time the farmers in Quezon tried organic farming. The farmers harvested tons of vegetables, but discovered that at that time, it cost them more to transport the produce to the market. “So tons of vegetables, naibalik sa lupa kasi first, walang market, ‘di pa maganda ‘yung road access at that time,” he recounts. “And ang daming supply. ‘Yung mga galing sa north na Baguio vegetables, sobrang baba nung price.”

“‘Yung mga tao, parang, ‘Wala naman pala ‘yan. Walang market ‘yan,’” adds Espital. “So bumalik na naman sila sa conventional.”

As Espital persuades the same farmers to try organic farming again, he and his colleagues grapple with the reasons why some farmers go back into conventional farming, even though the latter option is more harmful to one’s health and the environment.

“Mas madali sa kanilang maglagay ng pesticides. Kasi ‘yung difference ng labor cost ng pesticide ng [conventional] farming, mas mataas ‘yung labor cost ng natural farming,” he says.



Ana Ojeda-Osmeña of El Dorado Farms. Photos by JL JAVIER

It may not come as a surprise, therefore, that the farmers don’t eat what they plant for the market. “Kasi alam nila na puro pesticides ‘yun. So sasabihin nila, ‘Sir, ‘wag mo kakainin ‘yan, kasi para sa Manila ‘yan,’” says Espital.

Dacones recounts the same experience with some commercial farmers. “I visited one of their farms, and I saw how they … have a separate site for organic farming and those for commercial use. So I asked them why they have a separate site … [it’s because] they do bad practices to earn a higher profit.”

“There’s so much pesticide involved in keeping your regular vegetables looking the way they do,” adds Tan, discussing her experience with some commercial farmers in La Trinidad, Benguet. “For [the farmers], [it’s like] ‘We want this healthy option, but we need it to make economic sense, because we need to send our kids to school.’ The challenge was, how do we find a market that’s willing to pay a fair price?”

Competing with ‘palengke’ prices

Even if they compete with the advantages of conventional farming, the young organic farmers see no need to take shortcuts.

“I can’t compete with palengke prices, because those are practically what we pay our farmers at the farmgate,” says Tan. “And then to bring their produce to the market, I have to pay for the freight cost, quality control, what dies along the way, and even the assurance that they are farming in a way that respects the soil.”



Gio Espital of ELMNTM: Elements of Tomorrow. Photos by JL JAVIER


Organic produce is expensive, and this turns most people off, says Pinga, but he clarifies a few things. The first is organic produce can exist in the mass market. “When you go into the mass market … may organic din dun, from farmers that can’t afford [chemical] inputs. So they’re in the same market as all the conventional ones, so they end up selling at the same price,” he says. The produce is “organic by neglect.”

Even so, there’s not enough organic produce to go around. “Organic produce in the Philippines is just not enough,” says Pinga. “We’re small farmers. Walang malalaking farmer, or farm, yet, na all-organic. Because of such [a] small quantity, we try to position in a way that we can get the most money for our efforts din.”


Organic farming also has to compete and compensate for the mass machinery of commercial farming, especially when it comes to knowledge sharing. As it is, there is a dearth of knowledge and information about natural farming methods. “We have to create our own compost, even knowledge of what variety [a plant] is, all of these things we have to do ourselves,” says Tan.


Kalinga red rice from Hungduan, Ifugao. Photo from ELMNTM: ELEMENTS OF TOMORROW/FACEBOOK

Espital says they get most of their knowledge from YouTube. Ojeda shares, however, that most knowledge online is based on Western practices. “We can’t apply that because we don’t have the same seasons. You really have to talk to a lot of people,” she says. “[In] books, [there’s] not that much [knowledge] and you don’t even know where to start looking for those books.”

“A lot of it is also experimenting, depending on your area and on the seeds you have. You just have to try it out and hope it will grow well,” Ojeda adds.

Tan also comments about the content of available knowledge. “The kind of knowledge we get from universities or even our agriculturists is like a particular kind of education that is tied to corporate interests,” she says. “That’s the kind of war happening in the Department of Agriculture. There are some people who are pro-organic, others who are not, and even if they wanted to go organic, that’s probably not what they were taught in school. So they can only tell you what they read in books.”



Raffy Dacones of Teraoka Family Farm. Photos by JL JAVIER


The most important kind of knowledge on organic and natural farming, however, cannot be found in books or in the internet. Pinga says there must be efforts to preserve the knowledge with the “experienced farmers, the older generation.”

The idea is to preserve and pass down what the elder farmers know to benefit future generations. “More experienced farmers, they can tell from the way plants look, what does it lack, and what should I plant next,” adds Tan. “If we could extract that knowledge from our farmers, that would be amazing.”

But perhaps the biggest hurdle is changing people’s attitudes about what it means to go organic, beyond its meaning in the Organic Agriculture Act.



Rows of purple corn. Photo from EARTHBEAT FARMS/FACEBOOK


“People just haven’t fully grasped the value of organic produce,” says Pinga. “Right now it’s such a loose term. Sometimes, it’s like planting conventionally but just using non-chemical inputs. People [also] really don’t fully grasp the value of protecting the environment [through organic farming], the farmers’ health.”

“We’ve [also] been misled by this notion of abundance that we can get everything year-round and at cheap prices, but at what cost?” Pinga asks.

Meanwhile, Pinga and the rest of the young organic farmers continue to do the difficult work of intimately knowing the soil where our food grows, and shortening the distance between farm to table, in the hopes that slowly and surely, these small efforts will somehow help consumers make better lifestyle choices.

5 young farmers who are changing the way we eat - CNN Philippines

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