THE GROWING ORGANIC FOOD MOVEMENT

THE GROWING ORGANIC FOOD MOVEMENT I do not know how they are doing it in the United States, but over there, it is the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that certifies that the produce are organic, even if there are also private certifying bodies that do the same. The USDA certification is probably not free either, but it is probably cheaper than the private certifiers. How I wish we can do that here too, for the benefit of poor farmers who could not afford to pay the private certifiers. Since the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA) is not offering free organic certification services, almost anyone could claim that their produce is organic, according to their own minds, or probably according to their mothers. There appears to be some local certifiers also, but these are expensive from what I hear, and none has achieved the same credibility as the USDA certification. Aside from having chemical free and uncontaminated soil, the key to genuine organic agriculture is having organic fertilizers and natural insecticides, meaning that these are also chemical free. And in addition to that, the fertilizers not only have to be organic, these should be virus free and bacteria free. Sad to say, there have been cases of people getting sick because of contaminants in organic vegetables. I wish that the government would study the comparative economics of using organic fertilizers versus chemical fertilizers. While the former could be cheaper, the production could be lesser. Could the DA make that study? IKE SENERES/03-20-2024