Already, the Department
of Agriculture (DA), through its attached agency Agricultural Credit
Policy Council (ACPC), is helping develop tourism farms with its Sure-Aid and
Recover from Covid-19 (SURE Aid Covid-19) Loan Program.
I am reading the interview of Elmer Relente of Calaca, Batangas, husband of Ellen, owners of Anpilo AgriFarm (above
image), by Karlo Abarquez, from the Communications &
Public Affairs Division of ACPC, where Emmalyn
Guinto is Division Chief. (I’m selecting & translating freely from
the 4,300-word transcript in Taglish of the video recorded on location.)
Notably,
Mr Relente says, “Naisipan naming itayo ang farm na ito dahil sa paniniwala
namin na may bukas sa agrikultura.” (We thought of setting up this farm because
we believed there was a bright tomorrow for agriculture.) He means business.
Mr Abarquez says, “Actually, the Mission of Anpilo Farm is to
help promote agriculture using the organic method, and the Vision is to help
multiply the number of Agripreneurs in our country.” I say, “Wow!”
Mr Relente explains, “Organic has many advantages, one being
able to save on your farm inputs and yet produce excellent and safe food for
your customers.”
“Anpilo Farm has been growing dragon fruits for the last 8
years. Long-term crop. But we are also growing short-term crops: tomato,
chilli, pechay, lettuce, ampalaya, and eggplant – vegetables for pinakbet (the popular special Ilocano
dish – this author is an Ilocano). Cash crops. Then we have plans for our farm
to accept tourists, and link with the Department of Tourism (DoT) so that we
become part of the DoT’s promotion of Agriculture and Tourism in our country.”
Yes, Mr Relente is a dreamer. I say you have to dream to
push yourself. Formerly a Certified Public Accountant of a big company in
Manila (company name unmentioned), working for 30 years, until his wife Ellen and he took a vacation in Davao. That’s
where they saw dragon fruits, and that brought out their business dream in
agriculture. He says:
“So we planted a few dragon fruits, and we found out that we
had to address many things such as the problems of financing, fertilizer, and
knowledge. So we decided to venture into agriculture to delve into these
problems and, as it turned out, these became our advocacies. So, we registered
Anpilo Farm in 2013 and, since then, we have studied what else to plant aside
from dragon fruit.”
Ms Ellen says, “ACPC has been a big help to us because it
came at the right time.” Dragon fruit is seasonal; in-between there is no
harvest, no income. The ACPC loan came in, and they expanded into vegetables. “In
only 30 days you harvest TONS of pechay. You earn money and at the same time
help others eat.”
We
need studies on SURE Aid Covid-19 helping more farmers. Also: For operational
efficiencies, how about studying loans for Cluster Farm Tourism?@517
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