MANGO is one of the tropical fruits that the Philippines is known for, and one province comes in mind if we speak of sweet mangoes – the province of Guimaras. In the town of A. Lista, Ifugao, there is one man, that is known for his quality guimaras variety mango fruits. He is Mr. Allen Bongat, a Learning Site for Agriculture (LSA) under the HVCD program. Let us get to know him more.
His Roots
Mr. Allen Bongat was born in Baguio City to Mang Calixto who is a native of Natonin and Aling Minda, who is a native of Barlig, Mt. Province. Mang Calixto is a former NIA employee and Aling Minda is a teacher. Allen is 3rd in the 5 siblings.
The reason why they migrated to Alfonso Lista, Ifugao is a long story, so, to cut it short, his father (as a NIA employee) was involved in the construction of the Magat Dam way back in 1970s. According to him, the project Engineer by the name Mr. Dulig promoted his father from a laborer to foreman because he was the only laborer back then that can speak English. And their friendship flourished.
With the help of Engr. Dulig, Mang Calixto was able to buy their 50 ha. land in Alfonso Lista sometime in 1978. Through salary deductions, his father was able to buy the land from Engr. Dulig. The land was foreclosed by banks from various owners.
Initially, they utilized the area as a pasture land for their more than 120 heads of cows that time. However, as time passed by, cattle rustlers started to grow in number in Alfonso Lista so they decided to change venture in 1983. They fenced the area and started to plant mango trees (though their cattle venture remained). He recalled that every summer break, he would go to their farm and help his father plant mango seedlings until it grew to what it is today. At present Mr. Allen has a more or less 500 mango trees.
Why Farming?
Allen loves farming, particularly livestock. He developed the passion for it due to the influence of his father who already involved them in their farming activities at a young age. He recalled that he was grade 4 when he started helping his father to take care of the cows. As a child, he saw the potential in raising cows. In fact, he dreamt of becoming a veterinarian that time.
To pursue his dream, he enrolled in Araneta University in Manila for two years (1990-1992). His plan that time is to go to Australia when he graduates because of high salary (as influenced by his professors). However, his health issues (sickly) back then forced him to drop out of school. According to him, just to say that he has a degree, he pursued and graduated with BS Marine Transportation.
Despite being a certified seaman, he never boarded any marine vessel because his heart is with farming. Some are urging him to try, but by observation, he realized that even those who boarded vessels turn into farming when they come back so why still board, he said.
Also, he recalled that in 1987 in their career orientation program, he realized that agriculture is very important because one of the basic needs of human is food, you can never say no to food because if you don’t eat you will die, he said. This is why we survived during the pandemic even if there were no support, he quipped.
All these solidified his decision to delve into agriculture.
The Mango Farm
The farm has a total land area of 50 ha., but only 30 ha. is productive. Aside from mango as the main component, it is planted with banana, dragon fruit and coconut. They also have cows, ducks, chickens and goats.
Mr. Bongat took over the management of the farm in 2011, when her wife resigned from her work in Manila. His wife is from Abulog, Cagayan. They were blessed with 3 children, 2 boys and 1 girl aged 24, 19 and 6 respectively.
His first project when he took over was a fishpond. They cultured tilapia and they were earning from it. However, competition grew so he concentrated in their mango production starting with 200 trees.
Why Mango?
According to Sir Allen, there was a guy from Batangas who encouraged his father to plant mangoes back then. He said that, venturing into mango production has a potential because it has both local and export markets. In addition, those that are not sold can be processed into other products like dried mango, pickles or mango purees. So, there are a lot of products that mangoes can be processed into. Recently (2022), he also tried processing mango pickles and his neighbors liked it. However, he lacked proper equipment to operationalize his plans yet.
When it comes to revenue, Mr. Bongat claims that income from mango is big depending on your strategy. He said that if you will depend solely with middlemen, you will lose a lot of potential income. He related his experience with one middleman who offered him to buy the fruits of his 15-20 mango trees for P20,000.00, but he declined. Instead, he followed the advice of an employee from DENR, who encouraged him to sell his mangoes on the side of the road. As a result, he was able to sold his mangoes for a whooping P60,000.00 or three times the price that was offered to him.
It was that time that he realized there were really honest and cunning middlemen. So, when I asked him, what change will he do in the agriculture sector if he was the president? he answered - to eliminate middlemen because a lot of income is lost for farmers because of them.
Another reason why he sells his mangoes himself is that, mangoes are sold expensively in the market thereby depriving the needy consumers the chance to taste the sweetness of mangoes. “For me, I do business with a heart,” Mr. Bongat says. He gives “free taste” especially if he sees that the buyer looks needy. Sometimes, he adds extra kilo if he sees a really needy buyer with a child and even gives extra to the child. Sometimes he even gives it for free. It is by these practices that he grew the base of his buyers (suki). Right now, his “suki” comes from all walks, ranging from barefooted to the ones riding SUVs.
“Isu nga haan laeng a dimmakel iti kitak, nakatulungak pay kadagiti padak nga awanan” (so, I did not only increase my income, I also helped people who don’t have much, like me).
According to Sir Allen, he has many competitors from other provinces, but because of the good quality of his mangoes, buyers go straight in their farm to reserve orders (may it be green or ripe mango). Oftentimes, if he sells by the roadsides, his mangoes are already sold even before 3:00PM.
His technologies being practiced
Probably, one reason why his mangoes are of good quality is because of the technologies he practices. One of these is bagging. Mr. Bongat wraps his mangoes in a size 2 brown paper bags to protect them from pests. He does this when the mangoes are about quail-egg in size. Bagging the fruit earlier is not recommended because at earlier stage, it is still not sure whether the fruit will survive or not. From his experience, a lot of the fruit will not survive if they are bagged earlier than quail-egg size. This will result in wasted bags thus wasted investment.
This is the reason why others bag their mangoes at chicken-egg size to have a better chance of surviving. But for him, he cannot do this because of his area. He needs to start earlier in order to cover as many trees a possible. He said that he can bag 90% of the fruits if the tree is short while around 50-60% if it is tall. Sometimes, he is still bagging even if they are already starting to harvest. A piece of brown bag costs around 35 centavos and they can bag around 50,000 – 60,000 fruits from his 200 trees in one season.
Mr. Bongat also practices pruning. According to him pruning allows sunlight to penetrate the canopy of the tree thus supporting better fruit production. Also, it prevents the growth of fungi in the bark of the tree. He also practices sanitation.
When he joined a Facebook Group called “Mango Raisers Haven” he discovered that there are groups who offer fruit bagging contracts. With this, he got already an idea, “if God willing, I will be able to stand a chance against “Kurikong,” he said.
The Challenges
Sir Allen claims that one of the disadvantages of mango farming is the very sensitive management of mangoes on the first 45 days from flowering. It needs close monitoring because if pests or disasters hit at this stage, don’t expect that you will gain profit. You can break-even depending on the severity of damage. So, pest management is critical during this stage, he said.
Another problem during 45 days onwards are trespassers. However, I let them be because, they cannot uproot the whole tree anyway, so I let them taste my mangoes, he said.
According to him, common mango pests are manageable, except the “kurikong” which is very hard to control. This problem is caused by a Cecid fly, that causes raised black blotches in the fruit, that ruins its quality of the fruit. This started in 2018 in their area but originated in Pangasinan province. Compared to typhoons which can be forecasted, “kurikong” attacks unexpectedly. If you do not bag, all will be wasted, he said.
In fact, this problem almost pushed him to quit farming. Recently (2022), it was first time in history that he incurred heavy losses. Out of his P400,000.00 investment, only P40,000.00 came back. This experienced weakened his spirit to continue farming. However, his passion for farming kept him standing. He realized that if he quit the management of the farm and let it on the hands of contract growers, there is a possibility that it will be abused again. He said that losing is part of farming but as long as you have passion and happy in what you are doing, you will never quit.
So, his wife suggested to just hire additional laborer that they can be contacted at certain months of the operation. Right now, they hire around 5 laborers whom they treat with compassion and as part of the family.
His Experience as LSA
Mr. Bongat learned about the Learning Site for Agriculture Program from Mr. Danny Barruelo from the office of the municipal agricultural services of Alfonso Lista. He liked the concept but he still doubts about the offer during that. However, his friend from Cabatuan, Isabela, Engr. Felix Maramba, who also has an integrated farm, told him the advantages of being an LSA. Engr. Maramba, underscored that thru LSA he will gather various technologies and information thru trainings and seminars. So, he became interested and decided to give it a try.
In 2015, he became a cooperator of the LSA program. At first, he felt mixed emotions. He was happy but at the same time, confused because he doesn’t know what to do. As LSA, he got a grant worth P70,000.00 which he used to build his holding area. Another P50,000.00 for his nursery and another P50,000.00 to develop another area in his farm. He is planning to proposed again to develop his water source/deepwell. However, sometimes he is not able to submit his reports because of his busy schedules, which he feels deeply sorry.
As LSA, he gives back to the community by sharing his technologies as resource person in various trainings. Likewise, he shares technology-based IEC print materials (that he sourced from ATI) to those walk-in clients that are interested. However, according to him, majority of his clients were from Isabela not from Cordillera.
According to Sir Allen, the program helped him a lot. He developed his presentation skills by being tapped as resource person during trainings/seminars. He said that the most important learning that he got from attending ATI trainings/seminar, is about the soil and water conservation. It opened his eyes to care more for the environment. “I realized that I have still a lot to learn,” he said.
His Future plans
Mr. Bongat is planning how he will get a steady income from the farm. He realized that this can be done by planting various fruit trees. According to him, he observed the fruiting sequence of various fruit trees and he found out that next to mango is avocado, next to avocado is rambutan then lanzones then durian. Banana is all year round so he will replace his dragon fruit area (already diseased) with banana.
At the personal level, as one of his sustainability plan, he is now teaching his kids to work in the farm because he is already old. He is encouraging them to also have a passion in farming because in the end, they will be the ones who will benefit from it. He recalled the wisdom of his father when they were planting the mangoes, their neighbors were mocking him that time that he will not be able to reap the fruits of the mangoes anymore because of his age. However, his father was still able to benefit from the farm for 20 years and they are still reaping the fruit of his labor until now.
Reflecting on his story, behind Mr. Allen Bongat’s success lies his faith in God.
“As long as you have passion and happy in what you are doing and you have faith in God, everything will be alright. There will be failures but there will be more success,” he says. So, he encourages his co-farmers to just continue and be proud in what they do because farmers are the ones feeding the nation. He also encouraged the students or out-of-school-youths (OSY) to take up agriculture because in agriculture they can live and survive even if they are not employed.
Story by:
