A senior farmer's organic journey

A year ago, around this time, I had the opportunity to visit vegetable farmers in Benguet courtesy of WOFEX.

- AVANT GARDENER YVETTE TAN

One of the farmers I talked to was Mena Sukil-ap from Atok, Benguet. Turning 56 next week, Sukil-ap inherited her terraced farm, about 500 sqm of which is productive, from her parents.

"It's small. That's how farms here are," she said in Tagalog. "Disregarding my school days, I've been farming for almost 30 years."

Sukil-ap is an organic farmer who cultivates a variety of crops, including arugula, dill, Korean radish, parsley, bell pepper, kale, and cherry tomatoes.

Her farm, like others in the community, is PGS-certified via the Atok Organic Association.

PGS is short for Participatory Guarantee System and is a community-led organic quality assurance system used by many small farmers.

Some of Sukil-ap's produce is sold at the local market, with the rest being contract grown, consolidated with other organization members, and bought by bigger companies with a Manila clientele.

She said that organic produce, while harder to cultivate, sells well because people are more health conscious now and are more particular about the provenance of what they put in their body. This encourages farmers to go into organic agriculture because its high production cost means it's more expensive than conventionally farmed fruits and vegetables, making it harder to sell in the wrong market.