Farmers’ movements in the Philippines

Presented at the AGRICORD Philippines’ Partners Meeting 5 November 2012, Quezon City

Isagani R SerranoPRRM President

A bit of history• Spanish colonial rule: when sword & cross had it all• 1896 Revolution: peasant revolts• US colonial rule/Commonwealth: securing landlord

power through legislation; emergence of socialist & communist movements

• World War II: war of liberation• Post-war independence/dependence: return of the

landlords; from democracy to dictatorship and back: 9 presidential regimes

Diversity: a rainbow of change agents & causes

• Revolutionaries, reformers• Socialists, communists, anarchists, social

democrats, liberals, conservatives, multicolored, ‘non-aligned’

• Self-help, Cooperative movements• SA/Organic farmers’ movements• Small fishers movements• IPs and forest communities

Farmers’ movements & institutions

• Cooperative movements: 3,146 coops with agri/fisheries activities: Mindanao—1,719; Luzon—953; Vizayas 474

• Peasant associations/movements; Irrigators’ associations, farmers’ organizations; fishers’ organizations; Rural Improvement Clubs; 4-H Clubs

Motives & advocacies

• Social justice: landlessness, inequality• Farm sovereignty, political power • Self-sufficiency, farm productivity, food

security• Sustainable agriculture & rural development

(SARD) & sustainable development

Land reform, land justice , retrogression

• Landlords and landless• Land reforms: how far? how much?• Land reform reversal: old landlords, noveau

landlords, bankers & land developers, mining concessionaires, carbon cowboys

Continuing land justice movements

• NDF-led, other revolutionary/radical peasant movements

• Bangsamoro • IPs, lumads, tribal Filipinos• Agrarian Reform Communities• Landless farmers & agricultural workers • Fishers’ communities & their settlements

Food security & sovereignty

• Food security= when all people at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preference for an active and healthy life.

• Food sovereignty = right of people and sovereign states to democratically determine their own agricultural and food policies.

Which way?

• Agriculture-as-usual (AAU)---modern, industrial, corporate-led and marginalizing for small farmers; Green Revolution/genetic modification (GR/GM) oriented; global trading and longer food mile; natural resource depletion and environmental pollution; high external input and energy-intensive; larger carbon footprint.

• Sustainable agriculture (SA)---organic, local, resource-regenerating; bias for small farmers; local food systems, shortening food mile; oriented to social and environmental justice and sustainable development.

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SA movements • Sustainable Agriculture (SA) means---a system of

agriculture that is ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just and humane/equitable, culturally appropriate, and grounded on holistic science.

• This is the shared definition adopted by some 300 NGOs from more than 60 countries who participated in the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio and succeeded in getting SA into the Agenda 21 (Chapter 14 – Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development).

SA —revolution v. revolution

• The SA movement in the Philippines emerged in the mid-1980s in opposition to the Green Revolution (GR).

• Authored by Norman Borlaugh, the GR being opposed is a revolution in global agriculture whose mission was to help end hunger by increasing productivity to levels matching the rates of population growth. GR—a modern farming regime of high-yielding varieties (HYV), heavy chemical inputs, intensive irrigation. GR fails to end hunger and poverty in the countryside, lengthens ‘food miles.’

SA movement: from the womb of the rights movement

• SA as a movement came out of the agrarian/land justice and rights movement.

• Resistance to the Masagana 99, the local translation of the GR, and land monopoly in the country.

• Global influences: Hunger Project of 1977 aiming to end global hunger by 2000. As of July 1985, more than 3.5 million individuals in 152 countries had declared their commitment to this Project. FAO-led first conference on agrarian reform and rural development (ICARRD) and ‘Peasant Charter’ 1979.

• Federating the international organic agriculture movements (IFOAM).

SA movement pioneers

• Coming home in 1985 with the latest discourses from the Sustainable Agriculture Network in the US, Dr Oscar Zamora of UPLB introduced and spread the SA buzzword to kindred spirits in the Philippines. First meeting of SA leaders in International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR).

• Early buy-ins: SIBAT; Nicky Perlas, CADI; Dr Julian Gonsalves of IIRR; Farmers Assistance Bureau; SEARICE; Approtech Asia; Forum for Rural Concerns; others.

SA movement: beginnings

• Seeds of environmentalism in the Marcos era: United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) Stockholm 1972

• Martial law: KMP and its support organizations 1984. Philippine Federation for Environmental Concerns (PFEC) 1985, Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC) 1985 and the growth of environmentalism.

• SA spread post-1986: UPLB; IIRR; CADI; FRC; SIBAT; SEARICE; Approtech Asia; ANGOC/PHILDHRRA; PRRM; CBCP-NASSA; others

• MASIPAG after a 1986 national conference• CPAR 1986; Green Forum Philippines 1989• Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (SAC) 1987; First SA Fair in UP Diliman

1988; Second SA Fair in UPLB 1989 • SAC members among the leading activists before, during and after the

1992 Earth Summit in Rio.

SA movement: global advocacy

• Agenda 21 Chapter 14 – SARD; and all chapters related to natural resource protection and degradation (10 on land resources; 11 on forests; 12 on land degradation; 13 on mountains; 15 on biodiversity; 16 on biotechnology; 17 on oceans and seas; 18 on freshwater; 19 to 22 on toxic chemicals and wastes)

• Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) 1992 and its later derivative Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety; UNFCCC 1992; and Statement on Forests 1992; Convention to Combat Desertification and Land Degradation (UNCCD) 1995

SA movement: local

• Pre-Rio: PSSD of 1989• Palawan Council on Sustainable Development• Philippine Agenda 21; banning of pesticides;

IRRI Watch; NGO-IRRI ‘dialog’ 1994• Philippine Council on Sustainable

Development 1992• Sustainable rural development (SRD)

initiatives: agriculture, fisheries, forestry

SA movement: local

• Recovering indigenous knowledge• Linking academe and farmers• Farmer-scientist: farmer field schools• Retrieval and propagation of traditional seeds• Farmer breeding practices of old• Restoring farm/agriculture biodiversity• Rehabilitation of soil and water resources• Healthy food• Slow food movement: global local

SA movements: local

• Diverse practices: LEISA; DIFT; RAT; SRI; SA/organic by any other name

• From production to trading• Rising consumer demand for healthy food• Growing anti’s movements: anti GMO, anti-

biotechnology; anti-aerial chemical spraying; etc• Government responses: EO’s, AFMA, Fisheries Code,

FIELDS and Organic FIELDS; etc

World Food Day 2012: progress & deficits

• Theme: Agricultural cooperatives: key to feeding the world

• Deficit 1---1980 Hunger Project: ending world hunger in 2000

• Deficit 2---Earth Summit 1992 Rio: Farmers and SARD

• Deficit 3---Millennium Summit 2000/Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): global poverty & hunger

• World food crises: production & consumption, environmental, financial?

Post 2015

• Famers’ rights---Poverty, inequality, human rights• Sustainability & adaptation to climate change • Agriculture-as-usual = degrading land and water resources,

increasing health problems, rising agriculture share in GHG emissions

• Sustainable agriculture can feed the world (IAASTD 2008). • Chemical agriculture is a dead end, organic is the future.

Good luck!