Association of Negros Producers’ (ANP), successful farmers Eladio Panganiban and wife Rodelia, 4th and 5th from left, show a sample of their organic vegetable harvest during a media presentation in Bacolod City. OURFood is a three-year program sponsored by a German Foundation aimed to help farmers get better yield and earn more.
FARMER’S SUCCESS STORIES WITH GAP | ELADIO AND RODELIA PANGANIBAN
The Department of Agriculture urges farmers to provide safe food to the public by having their farms checked and certified for Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). It may sound like added work especially for a small farm so is it really worth going through all the trouble?
These farmers in Negros share how they are benefiting – economically, socially – from their GAP Certifications.
Rodelia Panganiban. From the 180 square meter lot, farmer Eladio and wife Rodelia Panganiban use to harvest only 10 kilos of pepper earning only a little from his labour.But with the intervention of the Association of Negros Producers, ANP, under the OURFood program recent cumulative profit has given him an easy P28, 000. The Panganibans, admit that before receiving the training they had no system in planting but simply depended on trial and error.
Eladio and Rodelia Panganiban, Barangay Patag, Silay City
20 kilometers from the town proper of Silay City is Barangay Patag, a haven for mountain trekkers and tired urbanites. The cold makes Patag ideal for high-value crops like broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuce, but it was only later in their married life that Eladio and Rodelia Panganiban discovered these crops. Eladio, in a trip to Cebu, saw supple rows of vegetation in a friend’s small backyard. He bought seeds and tried his luck back in Patag.
Their first harvest was frequent and abundant, with heads weighing a kilo on the average. They brought their crops to the Silay market, but no one knew much about those new vegetables. The vegetables were sold cheaply, at a fraction of the price they originally command as high-value crops.
OURFood finally came to Patag through the Association of Negros Producers in 2012, and Eladio and Rodelia were identified as beneficiaries. OURFood trained them in GAP and assisted them throughout the process of certification.
Regie, the eldest in the Panganiban brood, said that farming has become so much easier with GAP. As part of their GAP preparation, OURFood assisted them in putting up an eco-friendly rain shelter that protected their crops from the heavy rains. The rain would significantly shrink the size of the crops, expose these to contamination, and affect their income. Before the rain shelter solution, Regie and his parents had painstakingly covered each broccoli and cauliflower head with its own leaves, fastening them with coconut twigs – each head, each row, every afternoon, and with every hint of rain. The Panganiban family’s compliance to GAP has also earned awards and citations for them.
Today, Eladio and Rodelia reaps at least 5 large bamboo baskets (kaing) of cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce heads and lettuce leaves each month. This bounty rolls out into the ANP Farmers’ Market, to wet markets and supermarkets in Bacolod.
Market Day at the Negros Showroom
This small farm has funded the education of Eladio and Rodelia’s three children who are now professionals, and Regie is continuing the good fortune of the farm.nThe family has also had saved enough to open a small resort called “Ladlad.” Finally, too, the Silay Market is no stranger to Eladio and Rodelia’s crops. The Panganiban family is just one among the many farming families that were assisted by OURFood in securing their GAP Certifications.
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Love this post..always interesting to read about other parts of the world and the way they make money! I love to read about Agriculture, its always great to see the people and how they are succeeding!