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| All photos downloaded from Tropical Fruit Farm official website. |
Bottomless vegetable farm
templates
business venture
A
pick-your-own fruit farm may be the template for a family agritourism venture.
An
agricultural economist looked at an inherited family mango farm and found that
it can make money. The way: a pick-your-own, or PYO, venture.
Welcome
to the Tropical Fruit Farm in Tanay, Rizal, complete with 1,000 mango trees
that nobody wanted to tend when the founder passed away.
None
of the heirs were interested and hiring a professional manager was not possible
because no one was willing to contribute to a capital fund. While a family
member eventually stepped forward as the parti-time farm manager, it is
difficult to manage a family farm through once or twice a year.
Enter
Dr. Flordeliza Lantican from the Department of Agricultural Economics,
University of the Philippines in Los Banos. She found that the former owner's
share in the supply chain with a contractor was only 10 percent.
Her
research is highlighted in a paper by Don Gordon Bell and Jose Reyes of
Tropical Fruit Farm for the 1st National Agritourism Research Conference to be
held on June 27-29 at the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study
and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) in Los Baños, Laguna.
Jointly organized by SEARCA and the Tourism
Foundation, Inc. of the University of the Philippines Diliman-Asian Institute
of Tourism, the conference was held on June 27-29.
Among
other issues, it focused on the current status of research and development on
the agritourism industry.
“Consolidating
research outputs and initiatives related to agriculture and tourism will have a
stronger impact on the reduction of poverty and the protection of natural
resources,” says Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit Jr., SEARCA Director. “It emphasizes
agritourism as an important tool to diversify farming and boost rural economies
as well.”
“For
an agricultural country like the Philippines, which through the years has also
poised itself as a world-class tourism hub, the potential contribution of
agritourism to the stability and growth of the economy could not be
underestimated,” he points out.
The
conference will bring together investors and entrepreneurs, industry
regulators, organizations and the academe engaged in agritourism research and
development projects.
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