Our Social Development Framework

    The Alter Trade Foundation Incorporated (ATFI) vision is expressed in her credo: Save the Land, Food for the Future.  This vision entails facilitating a process of establishing communities that are:

  q       Self Governing, i.e. communities with a strong sense of organization and capable of:

a)      Demonstrating this by creating structures suited to their own context and needs and embodies their own hopes and dreams for their forebears

b)      Informed self-decision and progress-oriented;

 q       Self Sufficient, i.e., communities that are non-dependent on a single crop but shall be using diversified production systems and technologies and have acquired manifold production skills not only in agriculture but also the know-how to vertically move up to non-agricultural productive ventures.  These communities shall have shed away their monocrop-oriented and feudal past ;

 q       Capable of Building Up Independent Resources and Advocate for their Entitlements, i.e. communities that can demand for services and resources (from the Government and other sources) where they are available and build up their own resources (capital, infrastructure, among others) and structures where they are not available. This will mean establishing their own market links, building up their own capital base in addition to existing resources such as land and market for balangon and mascobado sugar.

 q       Self Sustaining, i.e., communities consciously nurturing the soil and reinvigorating and enhancing the environment for future generations, soundly and efficiently utilizing finite resources and possessing strong entrepreneurial spirit.

  The expected outcome of these efforts shall be:

  A dynamic sustainable agriculture movement and people’s development enterprises from below where people actively partake and exchange experiences and shall have forged links with national and global SA movements both of the producers and consumers. A secure and sustainable food source for growers and their children.  ATFI adheres to the central elements of SA as defined by the 1992 NGO Sustainable Agriculture Treaty, to wit:

    1.      SA should be economically-viable, ecologically-friendly, socially just &       

          humane, culturally appropriate, holistic, integrative and synergistic     

          farming approach;

     

          2.     It is based on the preservation of bio-diversity, producing diverse forms of     

                high quality food, fibers and medicines through methods which   

                maintains soil fertility and water purity, conserve and improve soil    

                quality, recycle natural resources and conserve energy;

3.      It uses locally available renewable resources and appropriate and affordable technologies, thus minimizing the use of external and purchased inputs in support of local self-sufficiency and independence.  It seeks to allow more people to stay on the land by ensuring stable sources of income; and

4.      It respects the ecological principles of diversity and interdependence and farmers’ traditional wisdom, seeking to use modern science to build on that wisdom rather than replace it.

  q       Full realization of the people’s right to development clarified by a United Nations Declaration in 1991, to wit: 

“The right to development is the right of individuals, groups and people’s to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy continuous economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.  This includes the right to effective participation in all aspects of development and all stages of the decision-making process; the right to equal opportunity and access to resources; the right to fair distribution of the benefits of development; the right to respect for civil, political, social and cultural rights can be fully realized.… Development is not only a fundamental right but a basic human need which fulfils the aspirations of all people to achieve the greatest possible freedom and dignity, both as individuals and as members of the societies in which they live… A development strategy that disregards or interferes with human rights is the very negation of development.”

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