Green & Gold Agriculture PH

01/11/2025

25/10/2025

25/10/2025

Mas mapapalakas ang kita ng mga magsasaka at mangingisda sa ilalim ng Executive Order No. 101 para sa full implementation ng “Sagip Saka Act,” na nag-aatas sa mga ahensya ng pamahalaan at LGUs na direktang bumili ng produkto mula sa mga accredited farmers’ and fisherfolk cooperatives and enterprises (FFCEs) upang patatagin ang lokal na produksyon at food security.

Basahin: https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/kRTuZh

15/10/2025

I wanted to share with you all how thankful my team and I are for GMA's coverage of our pilot at Esmeris Farm yesterday. So many of you have reached out to us with support on how you can get involved, and so many others have asked how my team and I got started on such an ambitious project.

Where did it start? Like everything that grows, it started with the soil. During the pandemic I met the one and only Sadhguru. We spent our time together discussing the dangers of soil degradation and how vulnerable it makes our food supply.

From those early conversations our team discovered biochar, learning about its positive effects on restoring the soil. We also learned that coconut husks – something thrown away in their millions across our country – was something that could effectively produce this biochar.

What is “biochar”? Simply put, biochar is an organic soil made from heating organic matter in a low-oxygen environment, a process called “pyrolysis”.

Our efforts to persue biochar led us to the Philippine Coconut Authority, who told us about their own ambitious mission to plant 100 million coconut trees and restore the Philippines as the number one coconut producer in the world, a title that we had carried as a nation for decades but recently lost. They made me the Coconut Ambassador; I was humbled in their belief in me.

But in order to create the healthy soil needed for a project of this size, the ground simply cannot be monocropped by planting millions of coconut trees. Fields and fields of the same plant create a graveyard where the grower only cares about the end product, and where nature’s crucial biodiversity is not protected. This is something that a number of you have correctly pointed out. Rest assured, this is not what we're doing.

My team and I, OMTSE, are planting food forests, coconut trees intercropped with native malunggay, coffee, and cacao species. We are targeting more than 350 million trees in this mission. We are working hard with the government, small and large stakeholder farmers, the indigenous communities, offtakers, and anyone who will lend us their support to ensure a revitalization of the country’s agriculture industry. And where does that begin? By ensuring a healthy soil that can withstand generations and continue feeding our future.

The photo below is of a coffee tree we planted in Brookes Point on Earth Day 2023, intercropped between existing coconut trees. The soil you see it standing in was strengthened with biochar. In 2024, as many of you will know, an el nino swept through Palawan, destroying many plants in its wake. Our coffee plant was not one of them. The photo you see is Earth Day 2025, and our coffee tree is thriving. It is growing. It is strong. This is why the soil is so important.

Together we can do this. Together we can grow.

12/10/2025

UNIFED defends SRA

“If there is someone to be blamed for the low price of sugar at the start of the milling season, we should look at the very people who have been agitating the market through their grandstanding.”

This was the statement of Manuel Lamata, the Chairman of the United Sugar Producers Federation (UNIFED) who lashed out at Aurelio Valderamma, President of the Confederation of Sugarcane Farmers for its open letter against Sugar Regulatory Administrator Pablo Luis Azcona over the low price of sugar at the start of this milling season.

“I feel this was all orchestrated because up until they started talking of importation, over importation, over supply, the market was quiet and we were expecting better prices than what we saw last week,” Lamata said.

He added that he has all faith in the leadership of Azcona who, “despite his young age, has shown wisdom more than this pretentious sugar leader whom we all know has an axe to grind, not just against the SRA administrator but probably against anybody who will get appointed to SRA because of his embarrassing short stint as a member of the Sugar Board.”

I have always reminded Paul (Azcona) to be very careful in dealing with CONFED for as long as Valderrama is at its helm because he has time and again shown that he cannot be trusted and will attack SRA at any given opportunity, Lamata said.

“That open letter was not a knee-jerk reaction to the low price of sugar and molasses. That person was obviously looking for the perfect timing to lash back and blame Paul for not getting his desired price, just like a petulant child,” he added.

Valderrama claimed he is concerned about the ‘worsening’ state of the sugar industry all because of the price drop in the first week of milling. Yes, we are all disappointed about the price as we are all planters. But that is not enough to slam an Administrator who has made several innovative programs in SRA. An Administrator who focused on upgrading SRA’s research facilities to aide our farmers in increasing productivity. An Administrator who inked collaborative projects with foreign partners to help us be globally competitive. An Administrator who created task forces to combat diseases, particularly the RSSI. An Administrator that crafted policies that boost farm gate prices in the past crop years. The first Administrator to issue a policy on molasses importation. All that the Administrator did in the past two years was beneath this so-called industry leader who based his assessment of our beloved sugar industry on the prices that he wants to prevail, Lamata said.

“I know Paul (Azcona) can fight his own battles but I cannot take this sitting down because up until last week’s low sugar price, our SRA Administrator has done so much for this industry,” he added.

If I recall, SRA has already made pronouncements that there will be no talks of sugar importation until mid-next year and only depending on production volume.

Administrator Azcona also announced last August during the Philsutech Convention that all sugar produced this crop year will be classified as B. Unfortunately, CONFED and his ally, the NFSP were in absentia for the second time around which tells you what kind of leaders they have, Lamata said.

These leaders have been consulted about the last importation order, and they knew full well that the refineries we have cannot comply with the refined sugar requirements needed by the bottlers, the confectioners and the likes. That importation program they are talking about was discussed months ago and went through consultation with various stakeholders. Yet, they kept mum for three months and when milling was about to open, started talking of importation which they know full well is bound to influence market prices, he said.

Worse, this author of the open letter even participated in the importation program through his association, the Vicmico Planters MPC. Such hypocrisy!

Again, I know Administrator Paul can fight his own battles but sometimes we need to unmask these pretentious wannabees in our midst and start questioning whether they are really working for the interest of the industry or because they have unresolved gripes from an embarrassing episode.

It’s time that SRA sees through these people who vowed they will collaborate and support the leadership. I think its time for SRA to sever ties with people who can’t and will never see any good in anyone other than themselves. It’s time that SRA will stop working with ingrates and hypocrites.

It makes me wonder whether his open letter is indeed the sentiment of all CONFED members and “industry stakeholders” as he claims and not just plain ranting from a scorned old man, Lamata said.● (UPR)