Livestock and Poultry Raising in the Organic Farm Agroecosystem

By Vin Lava
President, Philippines for Natural Farming, Inc.
May 17, 2011

Before I proceed, I'd like to thank Dr. Gabby Paz and the Veterinary Practitioners Association of the
Philippines for inviting me to this event. Here are some snippets I got from the web:

From: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sundaram7/English
“Global food prices are at the highest level since the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) started monitoring them in 1990. The World Bank estimates that recent food-price increases
have driven an additional 44 million people in developing countries into poverty.”

From: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2011/2011-05-04-01.html
“The world's population will surge past nine billion before 2050 and reach 10.1 billion by the end of
the century if current fertility rates continue, according to United Nations figures released Tuesday.
Today's world population is currently close to seven billion, increasing by the second, and is projected
to surpass seven billion towards the end of this year.”
From: http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2010/12/why-farmers-are-flocking-to-manure/67292/
“The idea that all of agriculture might have to rely on animal (and human) waste to maintain the
necessary soil fertility to keep the world from starving is not at all new. Only in the last hundred years
or so has it been possible to lard enough anhydrous ammonia, superphosphate, and muriate of potash
on crops to attain record-breaking yields (while burning and beating organic matter out of the soil). “
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/health/29iht-dirt.1.12423368.html?_r=1
“It takes tens of thousands of years to make 15 centimeters of topsoil, about 6 inches' worth.
Because of all the things human beings do to it, a University of Washington geologist, David
Montgomery, has calculated, the world today is losing soil 10 to 20 times faster than it is replenishing
it.”
One of Organic Agriculture's main tenets is building and maintaining good soil and feeding it, not the
plants.
This being a forum for discussing the role of livestock and poultry in Organic Agriculture, I'd venture
to say that you can't have real Organic Agriculture if you don't raise animals on small, local, and
organic farms. Why?

1. They close the agricultural loop by returning nutrients to the soil. Their wastes, in reasonable
quantities, of course, enrich our soil. The impending global shortage of phosphate will be more
difficult to address, as there is no substitute for this substance (see
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=phosphorus-a-looming-crisis). The only
solution here will be to recycle nutrients by returning all animal and human manure to
cultivated soil, as Asian farmers did for many centuries, and as many ecological farmers have
long advocated.
F.H. King, Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea and Japan, (New York:
Dover Publications, 1911, ed. 2004)
2. With proper management, they can also act as tractors, tilling the soil with their hooves, beaks,
and claws. Joel Salatin “harnesses these relationships between grass, herbivores, birds and
 insects by moving his cows daily into new sections of pasture, and following that movement
with mobile chicken pens. The chickens naturally peck through the insect-rich manure, better
spreading out the manure and improving its fertilization of the field.”
http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=9791
3. Ruminants grown on a diet of forage legumes turn plants that would otherwise be inedible and
unpalatable for humans into proteins that we can digest. These leguminous plants are essential
to Organic Agriculture because they fix atmospheric Nitrogen in the soil. See
http://www.fao.org/ag/agp/agpc/doc/publicat/VIET95/V95_107.PDF
Feeding livestock with corn and soybeans that could otherwise feed people also contributes to food
scarcity.
4. While pigs and chickens may be said to compete with humans for protein and carbohydrate
sources, free range and indigenous methods of raising them also contribute to the Farm
Agroecosystem by feeding them agricultural and kitchen residue. They can also act to
biologically control weeds and pests.
5. The prevailing model of livestock production requires huge facilities located as close to markets
as possible. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said that
livestock production is one of the major causes of the world's most pressing environmental
problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of
biodiversity. Using a methodology that considers the entire commodity chain, it estimates that
livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of
transport. As stated in the 2002 report of the FAO, organic agriculture enables ecosystems to
better adjust to the effects of climate change and has major potential for reducing agricultural
greenhouse gas emissions.
The FAO report found that, “Organic agriculture performs better than conventional agriculture on a per
hectare scale, both with respect to direct energy consumption (fuel and oil) and indirect consumption
(synthetic fertilizers and pesticides)”, with high efficiency of energy use. (Scialabba NE-H and Hattam
C (eds) Organic agriculture, environment and food security, FAO, Rome, 2002). Raising livestock
locally and organically would go a long way towards addressing this. This would likewise help the
millions of small Filipino farmers increase their income.
6. Organically grown food for local consumption saves on transportation costs, it uses minimal
purchased inputs, and needs a minimum of packaging and processing.
7. In “Evidence for the Nutritional Superiority of Organic Crops” published in Biodynamics
Magazine v.224, Jul/Aug99, Virginia Worthington MS, ScD, CNS wrote, “studies showed that
organically fed animals had less illness, better recovery from illness, better testes condition and
greater sperm motility in males, greater egg production in females, better fertility, fewer
stillbirths and perinatal deaths, and better survival of young. These outcomes, reproduction and
incidence and recovery from illness, are sensitive indicators of health status, and should be
given appropriate weight. Taking all of this into account, the available data is very strong with
regard to the health benefits of organic feed.”

What are the problems we face in the implementation of Organic Agriculture-based livestock and
poultry farming in the Philippines?

1. There are very few breeds available to the Filipino organic livestock and poultry raiser that can
compare to the productivity of factory-farmed animals.
2. To be an organic livestock and poultry raiser under the International Federation of Organic
Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) standards requires the following:
- A minimum of 50% of the fodder must come from the organic farm.
- A maximum of 15% of foodstuff can be of conventional origin (ruminants 10%).
 - No synthetic food additives are allowed.
It will certainly be a challenge to comply with this.
3. In the Philippines it has been said that practically all of the corn and soybeans fed to livestock
come from genetically modified organisms or GMO. According to
http://www.bic.searca.org/news/2011/mar/phi/16.html, “the Philippines is now the 13th largest
user of GM crops globally.” This will have to change.

What can the Veterinary profession do to support RA 10068 or the Organic Agriculture Act of 2010?
Rising household incomes will see a rise in meat consumption; how should we handle this rise in
demand for meat while also reducing livestocks' damaging effects on our environment? Our rising
population will further aggravate this.

1. We need livestock breeds that are best suited to organic methods of livestock raising under
Philippine conditions. Research into this is right up your alley.
2. At present we are seeing the rise of herbal medicines for people. I'm pretty sure that with a little
more research you can do the same with livestock. Alongside herbalists, veterinary
practitioners are the best people to work on this.
3. With the extreme weather that the world has been currently experiencing impacting agricultural
production worldwide, harvests are becoming more unpredictable. The rise in population is
also driving up demand and we find ourselves looking at the highest food prices we have ever
seen. Here are some observations from http://peakoil.com/consumption/food-crisis-2011-the-
global-food-shortage-has-already-begun/

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. corn reserves will drop to a 15 year
low by the end of 2011.
The United Nations says that the global price of food hit another new all-time high in the
month of January. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-03/world/world.food.prices.rise_1_food-
prices-meat-prices-abdolreza-abbassian?_s=PM:WORLD
The price of corn has doubled in the past six months.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2011-02-09-corn-low_N.htm
The price of wheat has roughly doubled since the middle of 2010.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/08/AR2011020804288.html?
wprss=rss_business
According to Forbes, the price of soybeans is up about 50% since last June.
http://blogs.forbes.com/afontevecchia/2011/01/13/on-the-verge-of-a-global-food-crisis/
The United Nations is projecting that the global price of food will increase by another 30
percent by the end of 2011. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-
business/economy/global-inflation-fears-reach-new-heights/article1881500/?cmpid=rss1
Due to all of the unprecedented flooding, the winter wheat crop in Australia has been absolutely
devastated. http://www.cnbc.com/id/41046196
This winter Brazil was hit by some of the worst flooding that nation has ever seen. This has
substantially hampered food production in that country.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/20/us-brazil-rains-idUSTRE70I68P20110120
Russia, one of the largest wheat producers on the entire globe, is still feeling the effects of last
summer’s scorching temperatures. In fact, Russia is actually importing wheat this winter to
 sustain its cattle herds.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/10/the_great_food_crisis_of_2011
China is busy preparing for a “severe, long-lasting drought” that is projected to have a huge
impact on several provinces. In fact, Chinese state media says that the eastern province of
Shandong is dealing with the worst drought it has seen in 200 years. The provinces being
affected by this severe drought grow approximately two-thirds of the wheat in China.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=12875276
It appears that Chinese imports of corn will be about 9 times larger than the U.S. Department of
Agriculture originally projected them to be for 2011. http://www.zerohedge.com/article/corn-
prices-soar-chinese-imports-increase-ninefold-compared-official-projections
Approximately 1 billion people around the world go to bed hungry each night.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/just-one-really-bad-year-away-from-a-horrific-
world-famine
Somewhere in the world someone starves to death every 3.6 seconds, and 75 percent of those
are children under the age of five. http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/just-one-really-
bad-year-away-from-a-horrific-world-famine
As food has become increasingly scarce around the world, many companies have started using
whatever kinds of “fillers” that they can think of in their “food” products. For example, Raw
Story is reporting that some companies in China have actually been mass producing “fake rice”
that is made partly of plastic. According to one Chinese Restaurant Association official, eating
three bowls of this fake rice is the equivalent of consuming an entire plastic bag.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/08/report-china-fake-rice-plastic/

A major contributor to food prices is the price of fossil fuels – oil and natural gas. Most of us know the
prevailing price of gasoline or diesel fuel. What everyone might not know is that, “Every single calorie
we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten. In 1940 the average farm in the United States
produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil energy it used. By 1974 (the last year in
which anyone looked closely at this issue), that ratio was 1:1.”
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915
Our livestock feeds come mainly from plants and crops. If the price of energy goes up, so do livestock
feed costs. With the steadily increasing energy costs incurred in land preparation, planting, fertilizers
and pesticides, harvesting, processing, transport, and distribution, it makes eminent sense to wean
ourselves from conventional agriculture methods that require huge amounts of energy and relocalize
our food production and consumption systems in order to control the cost of food production.
Aside from helping livestock raisers transition to more environmentally supportive livestock
operations, the veterinary profession must start working with eco-agriculture practitioners to look for
suitable feed alternatives that can be organically grown at a lower cost in the Philippines.
These are among the problems we face, but I would like to look at them as opportunities.
Maraming salamat po.