Sir Boy Cordero underneath his most precious gem and the source of his coco sugar - the coconut tree.
Another School for Practical Agriculture in Region 12 is GerNil’s Farm owned by the Gawad Saka Awardee, Mr. Gerardo “Boy” Cordero in Brgy. Topland, Koronadal City. This farm specializes in processed coco products such as coco sugar and coco syrup distributed to major companies in Davao City.
He truly lives as a Gawad Saka Awardee in the Coconut-Based Farming Category because one can see an aesthetic way of situating his coconut trees. These trees have ladders and containers that are essential in collecting coconut liquid sap every five hours, which is the prime ingredient of their famous coco sugar. In making coco sugar, Sir Boy uses his traditional oven with coconut husks to sustain the boiling heat. He further shares that once the coconut sap reaches the sticky state, you need to wait 3 and a half hours for a perfect coco sugar.
Aside from this sweet produce, Sir Boy also has diversified agricultural products such as mangosteen, cacao, herbs, rice, tilapia, black pigs, and other farm animals that are all being taken care of organically.
His farm features the “palayamanan” and “palay-isdaan” technologies that integrate rice and fish. This gives him another opportunity to increase his rice and fish production in an organic way. There are also three-storey and two-storey condominiums all over his farm designed for his livestock production such as ducks, lambs, and goats. Under these condos is a soil bank. This is being used for his vermicomposting that will be distributed to his plants and trees.
It was only 11 years ago when Sir Boy decided to take the road of organic farming and he never regret a thing!
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