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Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Earning like an urban executive while farming
By Rommel G. Rebollido
MAITUM, Sarangani -- Farmer Elias Olarte, 53, cannot hide the thrill as he picks unusually large green bell peppers from a hillside patch in a remote mountain village in this town.
Behind that happy grin on the lowly farmer's face is the windfall that his family has started to reap from the farm that he has been tilling since moving upland to Labudok in Sitio Badak Uno in June this year.
Yet, Olarte does not talk of a huge farm, but a mere quarter of a hectare of a sloping terrain set about 600 meters above sea level, where one can enjoy the verdant scenery amid a cool mountain breeze.
"I merely borrowed that patch of land from my brother-in-law," he quipped in the vernacular.
Already on his fifth harvest of some 300 kilos, Olarte earns as a business executive does from the twice a week harvest of his bell pepper the size of a man's fist.
Selling his produce at P30 a kilo, Olarte makes roughly P9,000 per harvest.
Olarte, who lives with his wife and their teenage daughter in a roadside hut, appears unbelieving of his kismet as he narrated his farming experience in the lowlands.
"I used to hear how difficult it is to farm the uplands. It was not so for me," he said.
Instead, he said, his farm yield became far better and bigger than when he was in the lowlands.
Olarte attributed partly his success to the learning he got on contour farming which was introduced by the Upland Development Program, an agriculture agenda funded by the European Union.
Following proper upland farming methods, Olarte said he alone cleared the patch of land that he borrowed and planted it with some 10,000 bell pepper seedlings that he got from friends in a lowland village.
Unlike the usual clearing method of highland natives in burning land patches, Olarte said he cut down bushes and grass then left these to rot and be used later as organic fertilizer.
Olarte is expected to continue harvesting and earn substantially from his bell pepper farm until March, next year.
Yet, the farmer already has plans of planting ginger and tomato in a half-hectare portion of his brother-in-law's property.
While he was talking about such farming plans, excitement already shows in Olarte's eyes. (PNA)
(November 23, 2004 issue)
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