His work as a government employee didn’t stop Benjamin R. Lao from pursuing his first love, which is farming. In fact, he plans to retire early to concentrate on his farm in Eman, a barangay of Bansalan, Davao del Sur.
“My first love is farming,” this Gawad Saka 2008 national awardee for coconut farming told the press corps of the Department of Agriculture (DA) Region VI. After all, his parents were both farmers and he grew up in a surrounding where people were planting rice, corn, and several other crops.
The Lao family owns about 40 hectares of land. In 1998, his mother divided the land equally among the eight children.