Organic vs reality

 

we are involved in the organic food industry here in the Philippines and this is correct.

But when other countries can produce rice cheaper using chemicals and three crops a year, we have filled the niche with gourmet organic food for the middle class

The problem? The government subsidizes this type of farming while ordinary farmers can't make a living so are selling their fields to the nearby solar farm organization, or (worse) digging up under the topsoil to pan for gold.

The farmers got their land where they worked for others including our family with land reform, but their kids are now educated and don't want to work hard and stay poor.

Since it is limited by law on how much land a single person can own, it means no big agri company is buying up the farm to plant using modern technology and displacing the small farmers to grow high yield crops for a profit.

and there is actually a shortage of farm workers: Many of our fields are farmed by people from Joy's village in the Visayas, for example. 

And many farm fields are being sold to people from Manila for second homes, or to Balikbayan, overseas workers who have returned home and want to live outside the cities and hire peple to work the farm land they have invested in for retirement income.

So although we support organic farming, the dirty little secret is that Clarkson is right: It is more expensive and lower yield. And indeed, a country that imposed organic farming on their farmers resulted in an economic crisis and famine.