The Green Revolution started in 1961 in the Philippines and brought with it serious
economic, environmental and producers’ health issues onto rice farms as a result of the
heavy use of chemical inputs. The shift from such “conventional” farming to organic
farming has therefore been encouraged by Non Governmental Organizations (NGO), farmers’ cooperatives and several academic collaborators since 1986 based on two
motivations - poverty alleviation for small farms and improvement of the farm
environment and producers’ health