Researching Farm Tourism With SURE-Aid Covid-19 Loan Program

Why don’t the Philippine Council For Agriculture, Aquatic & Natural Resources Research & Development (PCAARRD) and/or Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) promote R4D for farm tourism, first, by researching successful farms?

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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