DR. CHARITO (CHITO) MEDINA

Areas of Expertise

Organic Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems; Agroecology; Conservation and Restoration; Ecology-Species Interactions and Dynamics; Climate Change Resilience; Natural Resources Management; Participatory Research and People-Led Development

Brief Bio

Dr. Charito (Chito) P. Medina is a founding member of Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura (MASIPAG) or Farmer-Scientist Partnership for Development. He served as member of its Board of Trustees for 11 years, and national coordinator from 2007 to 2016. Currently, he sits in the Board of Trustees in three other NGOs dealing with toxic pesticides, climate change, and rural development & governance. He is currently a consultant to the Asian People’s Exchange for Food Sovereignty and Agroecology.

In the academe, he is Associate Professorial Lecturer in Environmental Science at De La Salle, Manila. He was also Associate Professor of Environmental Science at the University of the Philippines Los Banos and UP-Open University. He has published 40 technical papers and presented about a hundred papers in national and international conferences. He has served as resource person in more than 200 trainings and workshops, nationally and internationally.

In the government, he was civil society representative to the National Organic Agriculture Board (NOAB) from 2011 to 2014, the policy making body on organic agriculture of the Department of Agriculture. He served as full time consultant to the secretary, Department of Agrarian Reform from 2016 to 2018. He also served as short term consultant to the National Anti-Poverty Commission as well as in United Nations Development Program.

Internationally, he was involved in the design, and later as lead author, in the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).

He has served as Judge in at least Five regional and national Science Fairs. He was also judge in Canada-Wide Science and Engineering Fair in Univ. of Guelph, Ontario, Canada in 1994, and a Grand Awards Judge in the International Science and Engineering Fair in McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1995.

His areas of expertise include sustainable food systems and organic agriculture, participatory guarantee system, agroecology, alternative pest management, climate change adaptation, mitigation and resilience, impacts of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), biodiversity conservation, natural resource assessment and management, environmental science, systems analysis, participatory research, and rural development.

He earned his BSc Agriculture (Entomology) and MSc (Ecology) degrees from UP Los Banos and his PhD degree in Environmental Biology from the University of Guelph, Canada.