It’s not every day that we get to see the faces of our foreign friends in CPSU, and it is even more seldom that we see global leaders walk along and take part in a campaign that we daily march for.
The President and the Executive Director of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements—Asia (IFOAM-Asia) visited Central Philippines State University—Main Campus last November 24.
Mr. Mathew John, IFOAM President from India, Ms. Jennifer Chang, IFOAM Executive Director from South Korea, and Mr. Edgardo Uychiat, Negros Island Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development Foundation, Inc. (NISARD) President, met the university President, Dr. Aladino C. Moraca, officials, and local farmers as CPSU showcased its organic agriculture technologies.
IFOAM Organics International is a Germany-based organization that has regional bodies in Asia, Europe, and other continents and has a global network of farmers' organizations with members who are engaged and committed to the practice of organic farming.
In an interview, CPSU’s Public Information Office asked the esteemed leaders relevant questions about the currents in organic farming and other prospective projects in partnership with the university.
CPSU PIO: To those who are not familiar with IFOAM, can you please provide us with an overview of who IFOAM is and who are its members?
Executive Director Chang: “IFOAM Organics International is based in Bonn, Germany, and was established in 1972. It has regional bodies, namely IFOAM Organics Asia in Asia, which is 12 years old, and IFOAM Organics Europe, which is 22 years old. We have regional bodies in all of the continents and bodies that are coming up depending on the level of organic development. These regional bodies grow depending on the number of members and the level of organic development present. We also have the Intercontinental Network of Organic Farmers Organizations, or INOFO, which is an organic farmers association around the world. Our members come from the organic sector, and if you want to become a member, you will be asked if you are involved in organic agriculture.”
CPSU PIO: A part of your itinerary earlier was a meeting with the local farmers; what is the primary objective for the initiative?
President John: “I think it is important for us to see the university and the kind of effort it is taking at a regional level, so organic agriculture might be a foundation for the activities that the university has taken on and especially, President Moraca’s pioneering efforts and the enthusiasm that he has. I think it is important to understand the changes that these have brought about not only in agriculture but also in the people so that there’s cohesion in the attitude of people not only among themselves but also with the university, and that they see the university as a facilitating space that has provided them options for their livelihood. I mean, that’s a huge impact that the university has had just over the past few years, and see that going forward, it is creating a platform for our younger generation of leaders, so it's good to see both men and women leading their farmers' associations, and they grow a host of things like rice and coffee. I think what’s also important is to have an economic link so it’s not only grown for yourselves but to also take that into the market so that it’s creating a market linkage which, many times, is missing, especially with the universities and with the civil society. We tend to shy away from the market. I think it's a great effort to have market linkages because then you make them independent of whoever is in the university or not. When they learn how to deal with the market, they can sell; they can make products that are accepted by the market. I think all of these together create a much more wholesome environment. Yes, the stewardship of the places that they are living. The President is also talking about the whole spiritual aspect—so it’s not only in the physical realm but also to understand the spirituality of the effort that you're making. I think that then is a much more sustainable effort.
CPSU PIO: After the tour around the university and seeing first-hand the technologies and projects it has generated and is operating, what is your impression of Central Philippines State University?
President Uychiat: “We’re a foundation based in Negros Island since 2005, the Negros Island Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development. We sent about 500 students to CPSU, and they finished their studies around the years 2009 and 2017. This is a very important school in Negros because, if you notice, most of the universities in Bacolod have stopped offering their agriculture programs. Nobody wants to teach agriculture because parents don’t see a future in farming, but we think that organic farming will change that. That is the reason why we have a foundation, and we would like to work with CPSU, especially because you have a president who has a heart for sustainable farming, a love for the environment, and who grew up in this place. He has the feeling and understanding of what the area needs, so we’re here to support him, especially IFOAM Asia, who’s here. It’s not always that you have the officers, the president, and the executive director of IFOAM Asia coming here at CPSU. We’re also deciding to have an office in Bacolod for IFOAM Asia, which we registered last 2019. Visiting here today, we found out that there was a reason why we will have our office; it’s really in our heart to help farmers, especially those who are in rural areas. If you look at the name of our foundation, the term “rural” is there because for us, it is where the unreached people are, and to get us out of poverty on this island [we need to reach out], because we’re blessed with really good soil with about 7 or 8 major rivers scattered throughout Negros, and we have to do something about it before losing the biodiversity that we have. We have about three to five percent forest cover left, and we want to reverse that with agroforestry, with the food forest, and with what you’re doing here. This is exactly what we hope will happen for Negros Island, not only in CPSU, but this could be the center. That’s why we're in sync with your President and his thinking about making CPSU a national organic university in the Philippines. That would be good.”
President John: “What’s important is what he’s doing also institutionally. Many of the changes that are happening are happening at an organizational level. There are ordinances and rules, and hopefully, a lot of these will carry on. You need a whole succeeding generation of farmer leaders, and for them, after they pass from the university, it will still take them fifteen to twenty years before they reach positions of power where they can make policy changes. I think it’s important that he’s setting the foundation and that we will see the fruit, not tomorrow but much later.”
CPSU PIO: As you are already aware, the university offers agriculture-related programs. What do you think our students should look forward to with IFOAM’s presence here?
President Uychiat: “In my case, because I’m a local, we’re now shifting gears towards educating the consumer. The pandemic is quite a blessing because parents realize that there is a need to buy high-nutrient or nutrient-dense food and not just instant noodles. We met mothers in communities residing in mountainous areas like Don Salvador Benedicto who are using white rice as milk, which doesn’t provide babies with necessary nutrients but just carbohydrates. So we’re working on finding ways to have good nutrition, and we’d like the consumers to understand that they have to help the farmers. That's why we have an organic festival annually; we just finished our seventeenth year. There’s a lot of work to do; in terms of the consumers demanding more organic food, then you’ll get the farmers encouraged as well, seeing that it’s a good income-generating field.”
CPSU PIO: In a sense Sir, are you implying that our students could take part in the campaign by informing the consumers, or are they expected to take key roles in making consumers aware of the benefits of organic farming?
President Uychiat: “I think the students can play a key role in their own homes, cascading what they learned in school to promote better health and wellness instead of selling their agricultural assets like their carabaos to afford hospitalization. They can teach what they learned about preventing preventable diseases that we have now, like hypertension, diabetes, and kidney diseases. These can be addressed; after all, you are what you eat. It’s a big issue that we all have to work together; it’s not going to be done by one organization, but it has to be all of us working together.”
President John: “You see this health thing; we sometimes only look at how much we have bought and sold from an agricultural field, but to have good health is not a cost that you do not compute at all. And the immediate thing that we talk about is the cost of organic food. Yes, (costlier) organic food, but you’re well, do not have cancer, and don’t have other sorts of health problems. You can’t quantify at all, and it carries on. If you have healthy parents, you have healthy kids.”
President Uychiat: “Smarter kids too.”
President John: “Having all of these, we should not look at organic farming and food not in a narrow sense of agriculture but with a broad societal perspective. The benefits are immense, and I think these are something that we have just lost over the last 7500 years. It was the norm before, and we have to make that the norm now. We cannot just make that through an “organic club,” but it takes all of us—all of us—to treat it as a daily thing—organic food being our daily food. I think the rural communities are the forerunners in that. In my place, we have people working with blood counts of three and four, which is ridiculous. ‘How are they even walking?’ But they still have that resistance level. We have to build that because I feel that these communities (even the President talked about this) are the stewards of this area. If they are strong and healthy, we can have a healthy forest. “
CPSU PIO: Let us go back to the partnership between CPSU and IFOAM. What do farmers should look forward to in the future? Will we be having shared projects or any prospects?
Executive Director Chang: “We are still at the thinking stage about the partnership and what we can do for the farmers. When that was proposed to us, the signing of something was an easy one, but we were thinking, ‘How can IFOAM Asia contribute? ’ The easiest one and the most realistic would be for us to bring experts in. For instance, November is the organic festival, and we came here because of that. We can bring in more experts, starting with special lectures from international experts; many of them are also organic farmers and professors. Maybe we can organize an event for the youth here and let them interact with the young people, where after these lectures and interactions, something wonderful could happen. Another could be regarding how Dr. Moraca envisions making this a national organic university, right? We have connections with the central government as well, and he has his connections. We could give a common pitch to the government, which I think can be very crucial for the university and the Philippines. Lastly, other IFOAM-organized events are transpiring across Asia; we can bring the story of what CPSU is doing to other parts of Asia because this is something very unique. In other places, it could be organizations taking the lead, but in your case, it’s the university taking the lead and working with the farmers. There’s a lot of things we can learn from here.”
President John: “We’re also making modules of organic agriculture courses. This could be the melting pot in trying those modules and courses, and if you create modules, you can take them to other parts of Asia. Normally, most of the training takes place in and by people from the Western world. I think it is time for Asian people to be able to understand these biodiverse complex ecosystems and create courses for our people. That is then much more relevant, as it doesn’t come from an outside perspective but from somebody who knows the forest, grew up here, and understands the ecosystem not only in a physical sense but also the people and the community nearby. So when President Moraca was talking about the social chaos here in the 80s and how out of that empathy has come out. If we can create those modules here, we can take them to other parts of content, which will be a huge opportunity.”
CPSU continues to build linkages with local and international partners not only in providing its students with education exceeding nationally and internationally recognized standards but in also setting an example for its students as a model for creating genuine and impactful projects in helping build a sustainable and resilient Filipino nation.
Photos owned by: Dr. Aladino C. Moraca & Dr. Maryvic P. Pedrosa
