The need to go organic

"The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of life and drum echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit is bidding all men to fall in and keep in step and obey in silence the tyrannous world of command . Then more than ever it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent."

With these words of Charles Elliot echoes the vital role we all must play to be able to save our planet Earth.

As of today, more than two billion people live with less than $1 a day; most of them have no access to food, water and sanitation: the three basic needs for life. The industrial and green revolution have failed. The ozone layer is depleting as global warming and climate change take their toll.

The effects of Katrina and Rita in the US are manifestations.The tsunamis, record rains, droughts (El Niño), floods, typhoons unpredictable weather (La Niña), heat, landslides, erosion of top soil

More than 11,000 species of plants and animals are known to be threatened by extinction. Many have gone extinct before they have been discovered. Diseases are on the rise. Stars, mad cow, avian flu, TB, HIV/AIDS, a pandemic is here. Our air and water are in danger.The air we breathe is polluted and water has become a scarce resource. Our marine environment shows signs of depleted fish population and our coral reefs are bleaching.

Our biodiversity continues to be destroyed, our forests are being felled, our marine environment polluted. Our people continue to suffer, and poverty is on the rise. Our planet is dying, we need to save her. She cannot sustain much longer.

We need to eradicate poverty. We need to give our people the goals of safe food, water, and sanitation, attain food security and environmental security. We are a rich country and a proud people we can do all these and more.

Go organic and stop chemical monocrop agriculture We need to be self-sufficient; we need clean sources of energy; we need to be self-sufficient, we need to protect our biodiversity with a healthy and ecologically balanced environment to strengthen and increase our natural capital.

Three-fourths of the world is water, the global commons, and wilderness must be protected for the Earth’s survival. It is owned by all of us.We need to realize that we can do it with resolve and the political will to implement Dr. Trista Patterson of the United States Forest Department (USFD) stated that ecosystem services provide us with over $33 trillion a year.

We just need to look at the Ifugao Rice Terraces of the Cordilleras, a culture that has planted rice naturally for over 2,000 years. Let us learn from them and other indigenous cultural knowledge.With them lies the secret of a sustainable world with sustainable use of the natural resources. With the richness of their heritage we know that we can eradicate poverty, have safe food, water and sanitation for all and help stop the ecological time bomb from ticking. The provinces of Bohol, Mindoro, Negros Occidental /Oriental and North Cotabato are GMO-free and organic. We salute them.