Organic farming is an agricultural production system that is best suited in succeeding in the battle against climate change.

Prof. Oscar B. Zamora of the University of the Philippines at Los Baños (UPLB), a convenor of Go Organic! Philippines, said promoting organic farming is a sound option for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

He said organic agriculture production systems are less prone to extreme weather condition, such as drought, flood and waterlogging.

Zamora, who is also dean of the UPLB Graduate School, explained that organic farming addresses the major effects of climate change, namely, increased occurrence of extreme weather events, increased water stress, and problems related to soil quality.

“It reduces the vulnerability of the farmers to climate change and variability,” he explained.

Roland Cabigas, managing director of La Liga Policy Institute and also a convenor of Go Organic! Philippines, said their group has been advocating the massive conversion of conventional rice farms to organic farm sites as a way of battling climate change.

The Philippines, he said, remains highly vulnerable to climate change, with its slew of extreme weather like typhoons, floods and drought.

“We need to rethink the way we do agriculture because it is already killing us,” Cabigas argued.

As an adaptation strategy, organic farming increases the soil’s organic matter content and improves water holding capacity and makes crops more resistant to drought, Zamora said in his paper

“Organic Agriculture as a Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Strategy.”

In the same paper, he identified some climate change-resilient crops and potential substitutes for rice during periods of low rainfall.

These crops include avocado, carrot, cashew, common bean, corn, cowpea, eggplant, garlic, lablab bean, lesser yam, lettuce, mango, mungbean, mustard, okra, onion, pea, peanut, pechay, pepper, radish, sesame, sorghum, soybean, squash, sunflower, sweet potato, tomato, watermelon and wax gourd.

By promoting biodiversity-based farming systems that increase income sources and equip farmers with the flexibility needed to cope with changing rainfall patterns, organic farming reduces the risks of farmers, Zamora added.

“This leads to higher economic and ecological stability through optimized ecological balance and risk-spreading,” he stressed.

Since organic farming is a low-risk farming strategy with reduced costs of external inputs, it lowers the risks with partial or total crop failure due to extreme weather events.

Organic farming also provides products that command higher prices via an organic certification system, he added.

Due to lower costs of production and higher selling prices, farmers can actually increase their income and reduce the risk of indebtedness.

As a mitigation strategy, Zamora said organic farming addresses emissions reduction, reduces carbon emissions from farming system inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, methane, CO2, and CO emissions in lowland paddy soils by effective water management.

Organic farming, he added, promotes carbon sequestration.

This can be done through cultural management practices, such as use of compost and other organic materials for soil fertility enhancement, practice of biodiversity-based farming systems (mixed cropping and use of green manures, legume-based crop rotation, agroforestry systems involving annual crops, perennials, trees and hedges).

“Increasing the soil’s organic carbon has been pointed out as an important mitigation option,” he added.

The practice of soil conserving tillage system such as zero or minimum tillage is a significant contribution to the reduction of the carbon footprint since it avoids excessive plowing that leads to the oxidization of soil carbon and becomes atmospheric carbon dioxide5.

“It also reduces biomass mineralization, decreases oxygen availability and increases soil organic carbon concentration. These practices help reduce evaporation by minimizing exposed soil on the surface,” Zamora argued.