BAGUIO CITY – The Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Standards in collaboration with the DA-Regional Field Office-CAR conducted an inspection of Our Farmers’ Haven Federation, Inc. (OFHFI) Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) core group farmer-members in Benguet on May 14-16, 2024.
The three-day activity aimed to verify the compliance of the core PGS group farmer-members with relevant BAFS/Philippine National Standards (PNS) pertaining to organic agriculture, such as 337:2022 (Organic Crop Production, Post-Harvest, and Processing – Code of Practice), 07:2016 (Organic Agriculture), and Department Circular No. 09 Series of 2020 (National List of Permitted Substances for Organic Agriculture).
During the inspection, five organic farmers were thoroughly assessed across various criteria including record-keeping, organic practices, use of organic inputs, harvesting and post-harvest handling, land and water management, pest and disease management, among others. The applicants included COF Creek Organic Farm and Comedown Farm (both in Kapangan), Toda Farm (Buguias), LCA Farm (Bakun), and Brylyner Organic Farm (Tublay). All applicants have a scope of crop production except for Comedown Farm, which also includes livestock as an additional scope.
Prior to this inspection, the group underwent pre-inspection by the Regional Pre-assessment Team, facilitated by the Regional Organic Program in December 6-7, 2023. This pre-inspection is a prerequisite before a core group can be certified through POC (Participatory Organic Certificate) and initiates the accreditation process through an audit.
In an interview with operations manager Vivian Concepcion at their main office in Buyagan, La Trinidad, Benguet, the aforementioned five members of the core group are among the 205 active members of OFHFI out of 341 registered members. She also revealed that their federation has already trained 895 farmers with the assistance of their two agriculturists staff.
OFHFI was started in 2016 with a mission to create environmental awareness and safe food production through organic agriculture and train people to sustainably produce clean food while caring for the environment. The federation operates chapters in all municipalities across Benguet except for Bokod, where members are affiliated with the OFHFI-Atok Chapter.
The Inspectorate Teams consisted of two inspectors from BAFS (lead) and two from the DA-CAR Regulatory Division (members). Representatives from the Regional Organic Agricultural Program, the Agricultural Training Institute, and OPAG Benguet were also present as facilitators during the activity. By Jay Sagario, Magdalena Capis and Sheenalyn Bacayan
