Agriculture sustainability and productivity has been declining especially in rice production. The Philippines as an agricultural country has experienced similar conditions where several small-scale rice farmers are beset with environmental degradation such as the declining soil quality and fertility. The rice farmers also faced financial instability with low farm gate prices offered by traders and with the high production costs e.g. fuel, the margin of income is very minimal. The country also suffers from the loss of farm labor as younger people look for other, higher-paying jobs in the urban areas. To worsen the situation, agro-chemical companies promote input-intensive methods of rice cultivation and the use of input intensive hybrid rice seeds. All this leaves the Filipino rice farmers struggling with a vicious cycle of chemical dependency and financial debt in order to attain decent yields.

Currently, the Philippines aims to have self-sufficiency in rice production through the development and promotion of sustainable farming systems including organic rice farming.  Restoring biodiversity is one measure where native fish and edible snails begin to thrive in organic rice paddies, there is also an increase of organic materials  in the paddies with the use of organic fertilizers.

Agriculture has been main economic driver of Negros Occidental Province which is comprised of 540,386 hectares of agricultural land area. It is considered as one of the investment priority areas, to ensure food security and agricultural productivity. The rice production in the province has reached 467,100.30MT in 2016 coming from 108,822 has. of area harvested with 3.87 MT/Ha. average yield. 

Even with the Organic Agriculture program of the province and national government, there is still a huge gap of full organic rice farms in Negros Occidental. Prices are not competitive with regular rice, thus there is a need to develop value added products to organic rice in order to provide additional income to small farmers (women and youth). There is  also a need to support young farmers to go into organic agriculture. The proposed action will partner with FamilyFarms Inc. (FFI), where it can further develop organic rice (black, brown, red and white) into organic rice flour which has a higher value and applications because of the international market demand. Project VALOR aims to add value to the organic rice and develop new products. This will provide additional income to the small farmers and with the growing demand of organic rice flour, NISARD hopes to expand and sustain the organic rice production in the province.