DILIMAN, Quezon City—Value addition, product processing, and agritourism activities are only some ways that Alomah’s Place and Nature Farm in Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon has managed to keep a lucrative farm business for almost 10 years.
Amor Mahistrado-Luceñara, the farm’s admin and finance manager and trainer, shared this in an interview on the teleradyo program “Agri Asenso” on DZRH last May 14. Mahistrado-Luceñara is the eldest child of farm owners Benjohn and Grace Mahistrado.
The two-hectare farm is a School for Practical Agriculture certified by the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI), a Farm School of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), and a Farm Tourism Site accredited by the Department of Tourism. The farm produces mainly organically grown lettuce and culinary and medicinal herbs.
“For additional income, we add value to our produce by offering garden salad. We also have this processing where we make our own homemade vinaigrette that goes with our lettuce salad. We also offer garden salad buffet,” Mahistrado-Luceñara said.
“Our farm adopts the farm tourism concept, so we also have here our farm-setting accommodations and we also offer guided farm tours. We have farm activities like horseback-riding and pond fishing. Also, we give training on organic agriculture as a TESDA farm school,” she added.
Alomah’s Place grows six varieties of lettuce which can be bought at the farm for Php180 per kilo. They also schedule meet-ups with direct buyers in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City for lettuce packs priced at Php200 per kilo.
Their bottled homemade vinaigrette, on the other hand, is available in three variants (spicy, sweet and sour, and turmeric) and in different sizes.
“Finding a market for our lettuce was challenging at first because not a lot of people were eating it. But, right now, we have established our market. We made sure that we sell directly to customers and directly to restaurants. Being in a tourism area is a big advantage for us,” Mahistrado-Luceñara shared.
“We also use social media to promote our products since we are quite far from the city. Instead of going through a middleman, we go directly to the customers,” she said.
Mahistrado-Luceñara said that interested buyers and guests may reach them through their Facebook page.
Her full interview is available for streaming at ATI’s official Facebook page (@atiinteractive).
