Eco-organic tourism, a viable option

Saturday, October 22, 2011

THE Jaime V. Ongpin Foundation, Inc. tapped two of the successful organic farmers in Baguio and Benguet for their project Eco-organic Tourism as Strategy for Poverty Reduction or Replicating La Top Success through Capacity Building and Alternative Tourism.

The project is eco-organic tourism with successful organic farms demonstrating the positive impacts on both the community and the environment. The aim is to educate tourists on the environmental contribution of organic farming and eating healthy food.

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The Good Life Farm, owned and operated by Felix Tan is located in Long Long near the city limit of Baguio and La Trinidad, Benguet. While the Lily of the Valley farms, owned by Jeff Laruan, will soon be opening its doors with a packaged home stay for their interested clients.

Both entrepreneur farmers are adept on the technical aspects of organic farming, and are able to explain the process thoroughly after six years in the organic farming method.

Although both come from different backgrounds, they had similarities in experience from the chemicals they had been exposed to in their previous works. Tan used to be with a garments factory in Metro Manila prior to settling in Baguio and was exposed daily to the harmful effects of the different chemicals used in the process of dyeing and printing their garments.

On the other hand, Jeff Laruan had been a conventional farmer before going organic, and used chemical insecticides, pesticides and fungicides extensively for his crops. But in 1997, while spraying insecticides on his string beans, he fell unconscious for hours which he deemed had been the effects of inhaling the chemical after he regained his senses.

In 2005, both men attended a seminar in Organic Farming Methods by La Top and started their journey to organic farming as a means to a healthier option by eradicating the use of chemicals in their crops.

After six years, they are two of the successful suppliers of organically produced vegetables and herbs in the market through the La Top cooperative.

JVOFI tapped their farms to be the model for this project, aiming to promote conversion by other farms and farmers, who are still practicing conventional method of farming to a better option with organic farming.

The desired outcome would be benefits such as expanded income and local employment while making the farms popular thus, educating and convincing more farmers to shift will be easier.