LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – 770 Benguet farmers coming from ten municipalities in the province successfully finished 18 episodes of the School-On-the-Air Participatory Guarantee System (SOA-PGS) program, and has been declared as graduates of the said modality implemented by the Agricultural Training Institute in partnership with local government units.
PGS helps farmers to improve their practices and to exchange knowledge with each other. The capacity building does not only involve producers but extends to consumers as well, by empowering them to make informed purchasing decisions, whether buying directly from farmers, or in the retail chain in the country, and promote community-based organic agriculture systems.
PGS certifies producers as active practitioners of organic agriculture, and serves as an alternative to third-party certification. Developed by organic agriculture practitioners, it encourages social networking and knowledge exchange.
In the awarding ceremonies held at the ATI-RTC at the Benguet State University, the regional technical director (RTD) of the regional field office of the Department of Agriculture in the Cordillera (DA-RFO-CAR) for Research and Regulations Atty. Jennilyn Dawayan congratulated the Tublay Organic Farming Practitioners Agriculture Cooperative (TOFPAC) for reaching a historic milestone of 5 members who were awarded the first accreditation certificate in the Philippines as an organic certifying body under the Participatory Guarantee System awarded on May 16, 2022.
“There have been hurdles that they underwent for them to proceed as an organization. The five core members has been authorized to certify their farmer members to adhere to the Philippine National Standard,” Dawayan said.
The DA launched a quality assurance system offering low-cost certification for small farmers and fisherfolk to make their organic products more marketable.
The PGS is a feature of Republic Act (RA) 11511, which amended RA 10068 or the Organic Agriculture Act, with the intention of opening doors to more agriculturists seeking to maintain a sustainable and environment-friendly organic operation, while promoting and further developing the practice of organic agriculture.
As of October 18, 2022, the TOFPAC was able to certify four members bringing a total of nine as part of the national certifying body which is a locally focused quality assurance system to developed and practiced by those actually engage in organic agriculture. PGS is used to certify producers and farmers as actual and active practitioners of organic agriculture.
“What I personally like with PGS is its alignment with our indigenous peoples practices because as indigenous communities, PGS means having a strong culture of “bayanihan” or a strong culture of helping each other specially in times of need, which exemplifies trust with one another through the sharing of information which is being used in the concept of PGS, reinforcing our culture of humility, fidelity, honesty, truthfulness and commitment,” Dawayan reiterated.
The PGS has four stages with the initial stage starting with a strategy design, a compliance stage composed of the strategy execution, a proficiency stage which monitors and evaluates the strategy, and the institutionalization stage which seeks to attain breakthrough results.
Aired over radio station MPBC-DZWT every Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11-11:45 AM, the new system also directly contributes to the farm consolidation or objective of the DA, and aims to increase the local availability of certified organic products of small and medium farmers.
