ILOILO City – The municipality of Tubungan, Iloilo further strengthened its initiatives to promote organic agriculture among farmers.
Tubungan municipal agriculturist Marjorie Tacardon said the town adopted organic farming to produce safe and healthy food.
“We value quality over quantity in our food production. Through organic farming, we could produce safe food to consume for a healthier and longer life,” she said.
According to Tacardon there is a need to protect the environment. She cited the Republic Act 10068 which mandates the conversion of at least five percent of the agricultural areas into organic farms.
The Tubungan Vegetable Producers Association (TVPA) started to venture into organic farming in 2012. The group underscored the need to gradually transform their areas to boost the production of safe food and further avert the damage in the environment caused by the oblivious application of synthetic inputs.
Through training from the Department of Agriculture on Integrated Pest Management, it further ignited the farmers’ willingness to refrain from chemical farming.
Meanwhile, TVPA president Antonio Tadiaque said they have engaged farmer adopters in the municipality and have grown organic vegetables and even poultry animals.
“We grow vegetables, lettuce, pechay, black rice, livestock, and poultry animals organically in more than 100 hectares of farm areas in Tubungan by almost 200 local organic farming adopters,” he said.
To sustain the agency’s efforts in persuading farmers to shift into organic practices, the local agriculture office in Tubungan led by former Municipal Agriculturist Ma. Asuncion Tabucuran broadened farmers’ grasp of technologies through a series of training.
They also distributed farm inputs such as organic seeds and fertilizers to farmers and adopters.PIA/PN
