AMBOANGA CITY (PNA) - The Office of the City Agriculture (OCA) here has embarked on a massive campaign for production and use of organic fertilizers in this southern port city. City Agriculturist Diosdado Palacat said Tuesday that this is in accordance with Republic Act (RA) 10068 or the "Organic Agriculture Act of 2010" which provides for the development and promotion of organic agriculture in the Philippines and for other purposes, as defined in Section 2 of the said law. Palacat cited RA 10068's declaration of policy which reads "it is the policy of the state to promote, propagate, develop further and implement the practice of organic agriculture in the Philippines that will cumulatively condition and enrich the fertility of the soil, increase farm productivity, reduce pollution and destruction of the environment, prevent the depletion of natural resources, further protect the health of farmers, consumers, the general public and save on important farm inputs." "We have to go back to the basic, which is the organic farming practice, because this technology is ecologically friendly, consumers will be safe from synthetic insecticidal and pesticidal residues.
This will dramatically reduce the external input of our farmers and eventually increase the production," Palacat said. According to Palacat, he recently convened the different Agricultural Field Officers in this city's six agricultural districts and division heads concerned to start the production of organic fertilizer through compost pit, compost pile and vermin-compost in their respective areas of responsibility and to conduct farm demonstration using organic fertilizer for the farmers in their locality.
"The materials to be used are only recycled wastes of plants and animal origin, which is all available in the field such as rice hays, newly-cut grasses, animal manure and kitchen discards," he said. "The primordial concern of the office is to develop high-yielding and cost-reducing technologies," he added. He said that as part of the campaign, his office through the Information Section and Farmers' Information and Technology Services (FITS) center is also reproducing a variety of information materials regarding organic fertilizer to be distributed and at the same time film viewing on how to make compost will be conducted to clients.
