MASIPAG Visayas is located in Visayas, an archipelagic region in the Central Philippines that hosts nine major islands, consisting 16 provinces. Visayas is known for its rich aqua and agri-biodiversity and its local culture as diverse as the several local dialects spoken by local people in each province, and it is one of the Island regions of MASIPAG Inc. network in the Philippines.
MASIPAG Visayas has an active presence in 11 of the 16 provinces in Central Philippines, its operation clustered into four (4), implementing sustainable agriculture and agroecology programs and activities aimed to empower small and resource-poor farmers and their communities to become food secure and self-reliant.
Realizing a just and humane quality of life for marginalized farmers has always driven MASIPAG’s work since its inception in 1985: from initial farmer-centered rice genetic conservation and improvement, to its decentralized and community-led corn genetic conservation and improvement, and scaling-up including animal genetic conservation and improvement, processing and marketing. Alongside with its technical programs, MASIPAG has put more efforts in building farmer’s resilience to climate change.
MASIPAG advocates for an agricultural system and research that benefits farmers and rural communities rather than multinational companies and capitalist traders, for its philosophy is “People First Before Profit”.
In the midst of corporate control in agriculture, restrictive intellectual property rights and genetically engineered crops, globalizing markets and climate change, MASIPAG’s relevance as a network, as a philosophy and way of life can be found in farmers reclaiming control over their seeds, production technologies and associated knowledge, and in the defense of their rights as a social sector, as well as in the regeneration of their immediate agricultural biodiversity.
Training and Education
MASIPAG Visayas promotes farmer-led sustainable agriculture and agroecology to achieve sustainable food system and food sovereignty.
The education and training program is designed based identified needs of the small farmers and their organization, and are supportive to their local initiatives in establishing sustainable farm systems, in gaining social and political empowerment by asserting farmer-centered agriculture research and programs, and in addressing climate changes and other threats to food security and sovereignty. Training courses include, among others, the following:
Advocacy
Rice being the staple food of Filipinos, each MASIPAG farmer household have at least 2-3 organic seeds of farmer-bred and Masipag rice in mass production as their source of food, their communities maintain their trial farm and seedbank as source of seeds for their members, they no longer buy synthetic farm inputs, and develop or innovate their own technologies suited to their farm conditions. With their practice of diversified integrated farming system, they now have their own diverse sources of nutrition and market their surplus farm produce to local consumers.
MASIPAG advocates for farmer empowerment, farmer-led agroecology and sustainable food systems. These are expressed by its concrete works on the ground such as but not limited to seed and biodiversity conservation and farmers’ rights to seeds, land and food, and seed and food sovereignty.
