Agriculture Business Week

At 29, Romeo Yapit is awarded Outstanding Young Farmer of the Philippines. No doubt that’s quite an achievement.

This enterprising young farmer of Purac, Sinait, Ilocos Sur started fanning in 2002. He had to stop his schooling as he had to support his family for his father had a heart attack. He was a second year mechanical engineering student then.

Thinking of a marketable crop that would not consume much soil nutrients, Yapit observed that planting different vegetables year round and watermelon after rice was profitable.

This might be the solution, he told himself. So with the help of his brother Jerome, Yapit planted their 8,000 square meter land to various vegetables including eggplant and tomato. And he has been right; his strategy has worked out.

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Posted on July 20th, 2010 under Farming, Rice, Vegetables. Tags: Farming, Rice, Rice Hull, Tomatoes. Comments: 9

One model farm that attendees of the recent National Vegetable Congress held in General Santos City visited is the organic farm of Capt. James Fos Reamon, a commercial pilot, in Brgy. Katungauan of the same city. There they saw beautifully growing high-value vegetables like carrots, hybrid tomatoes, ampalaya, eggplant, lettuce, pechay, cauliflower, rootcrops and many more.

Aside from vegetables, the 2.4-hectare diversified farm boasts of fruit trees like exotic mango varieties, avocado, pummelo, latexless jackfruit, aromatic coconut, lemon and others. The farm also has a small parcel for growing organic rice, a fishpond for growing fish and ornamental water plants like Nymphaea.

The farm is being developed into a showcase of organic farming practices like the production of vermicast, a very potent organic fertilizer, using the African nightcrawler earthworm. James is considered the biggest vermicast producer in southern Mindanao today, producing half a ton of pure vermicast everyday. He envisions his farm to eventually become a tour destination for people interested in organic farming.

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Posted on August 11th, 2009 under Farming, Fruits, Organic, Other Crops, Vegetables. Tags: Ampalaya, Carrots, Farming, Fruits, Organic, Tomatoes, Veggies. Comments: 6