Organic farming advocates have asked the Department of Agriculture  (DA) to fund and implement programs designed to strengthen the capability of farming to sustain itself and battle drought and floods.

Lawyer Efren Moncupa, lead convenor of Go Organic! Philippines, said that aside from promoting environment-friendly food production practices, DA should integrate disaster preparedness and risk reduction to food security programs.

Moncupa, a former agrarian reform undersecretary, who is now with the Bataan-based Malasimbu Agricultural Cooperative, stressed that agriculture is vulnerable to extreme weather events because of climate change and it is best for the government to protect the sector from calamities in any way possible.

“The government should allocate adequate fund for disaster preparedness, to reduce risk of losing billions worth of investment in the agriculture sector. Otherwise, our economy will continue to be vulnerable to natural calamities,” he said.

La Liga Policy Institute (LLPI) managing sirector Roland Cabigas, also a convenor of Go Organic! Philippines, said timely government intervention to protect the interest of the agriculture sector, particularly the resource-poor farmers, is needed.

He cited the damage brought about by Ondoy to agriculture, which has now breached P12 billion.

“We can not dismiss the fact that such damage will severely affect small farmers who are still reeling from the impacts of the global economic crisis,” Cabigas said.

A member of the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI), a consortium of non-government organizations which has been actively engaging the government in the budget process, LLPI identified lack of national framework for disaster preparedness and risk reduction in response to climate change in the proposed P1.54 trillion budget for 2010.

ABI is proposing increased allocation for the DA to implement actions to make the 2010 budget “climate sensitive.”

This include an additional P500 million for capacity building for farmers on organic agriculture and biodynamic farming, P50 million for research, development and piloting of climate change-resilient crops and livestock, and P100 million for research, development and piloting of sustainable farming systems. The group is also proposing to re-align P500 million for capacity building of farmers on organic farming.

Part of the P100 million for research, development and piloting of sustainable farming systems, the group proposed, should be used to study climate change effects such as drought and flood, with the end goal of minimizing losses on the part of the farmers.

“If we need to re-design farming to prevent huge economic losses because of drought and typhoons, then we should and only through timely government intervention such as providing adequate fund can address this climate change challenge,” Cabigas said.