Mr. Reynaldo M. Cabanao has been involved in Development Work way back 1981, in his early days as Extension Service Officer of Xavier University-Ateneo De Cagayan until 1991. He studied Agriculture in the same university, majoring in Development Communication 1976-1980. From his early university work, he was also involved in Agrarian Reform as Provincial Coordinator for the Tripartite Partnership for Agrarian Reform & Rural Development (TRIPARRD) project with the NGO – PHILDHRRA. Later he also joined the Cooperative movement jointly organizing farmer coops in Northern Mindanao and at one point was sitting at the Regional Cooperative Development Council (RDC) of Region 10. Presently, he is the Chairperson of the Regional Agri-Fisheries Council of Northern Mindanao, incumbent Board of the Philippine Maize Federation (PHILMAIZE INC), and President of ASFARNET Philippines.
Abstract:Perspective from ASFARNET-PH (Asian Farmer Regional Network, Philippines) on the usage of seeds and new developed varieties.
On December of 2003, The Republic of the Philippines approved for commercialization it’s first ever Genetically Modified Crop paving way to the production of pest resistant ‘bt corn’. The milestone did not come easy, it took years and countless anti GM peasant mobilization which effectively marred the entry of this novel technology in the Philippines. A ‘study published in the International Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, was conducted to assess the economic value of growing GM corn in the Philippines between 2002 and 2019. Cultivation of GM corn has expanded rapidly in that time, with the amount of acreage increasing by an average of 31.24 percent each year. Currently, some 460,000 farm families, or a third of all corn farmers in the Philippines, are now planting GM corn on about 835,000 hectares.’* (Joan Conrow, Alliance for Science, July 2, 2021)
For many, the opinion is that the technology opened the flood gates to high corn yield, with production peaks reaching 8-10 tons per hectare (government data show an average of 4 tons/ha) But of course, high production does not necessarily equate to productivity vis a vis the livelihood of our smallholder farmers.
My presentation “Perspective from ASFARNET-PH (Asian Farmer Regional Network, Philippines) on the usage of seeds and new developed varieties” will attempt to share the viewpoint of our farmer-end users on the above subject lifted from the experience of our network in the Philippines. Offhand, while the onset of ‘new seeds’ specifically GM seeds has brought a sharp increase in crop production, associated to it are issues of seed access (price), property rights, usage, and seed preservation. Somehow, it is our opinion that a point of mutual equilibrium needs to be struck between those who produce the seeds and us who uses the seeds with the endpoint of providing food security being a common goal.
Only then can we formulate a more realistic and achievable strategy to address recurring issues related to the intellectual property rights invoked by the industry as it collides with the primordial right of farmers to produce and conserve their own seeds, with a solution coming from opposing sides of the conversation.
