A Farm-to-table Concept Works Best For This Organic Farming Advocate

WITH THE INFLUX of ready-to-eat foods, wouldn’t it be more satisfying to know where our food comes from? And where nutritional value is concerned, any homemaker would love that the members of their family, especially the younger generation who have been used to junk food, to at least change their preference, giving value to health benefits over taste and ease of preparation.

- Sahlie P. Lacson

Food and nutrition are two analogous terms that should go alongside agriculture. In their truest sense, they are correlational. It is because of the necessity for food that we need to have a sustainable agriculture, and it is in agriculture that we could provide food, much so looking beyond just calories to ensure feeding people well. And this is where the importance of the term ‘organic,’ or natural, evolved in as far as crop production and farm set up were concerned.

Nowadays, there are more and more organizations, companies, and social enterprises willing to help and do their part in working for what needs to be achieved in terms of sustainability in food production by turning to natural farming. “By safe and natural, we mean we do not use pesticides, or any harmful chemicals to the soil, plants, beneficial insects, and us, the consumers,” defines Carlomagno Aguilar who manages Organic Growth.

Organic Growth is one of the social enterprises (SE) whom we were privileged to know of during a roundtable interview initiated by BPI Sinag Awards recently where they were cited as among this year’s awardees. Aguilar has come to love agriculture at an early age and used this to help sustain food production. Though a Bachelor of Arts major in Asian Studies graduate from a reputable school, and who is supposed to follow a career path in Foreign Affairs, Aguilar pursued his passion for farming at the age of 25.

“I started farming when I was 25 years old. I was just growing tomatoes and hot peppers back then which I deliver to a Kapampangan restaurant. Sometimes, I directly sell them in the public market,” shared Aguilar. “I’ve been farming for several years already but I never tried to understand where my produce goes.”