TUBA, Benguet—To attract more distributors of its organic coffee and vegetable products, the Philex Group Foundation Inc. is taking measures such as soil enrichment to increase its harvest.
The foundation recently hired experts to teach its farmer-beneficiaries the proper way of mixing decayed plants, such as leaves and grasses, for the improvement of soil nutrients.
“The expansion of our market for these products and for processed meat has been our focus for the medium term,” Paul Buenconsejo, PGFI executive director, said. “One of the most important steps is to have more distributors for our products.”
Buenconsejo said the medium-term goal, from 2014 to 2018, is to further increase the number of distributors for organic coffee currently at eight and for organic vegetables, totaling seven.
He added that the foundation targets an annual processed meat production of 2.5 3 tons and has penetrated the Baguio-Benguet market for morcon meat roll stuffed with sausage, carrots, pickles, cheese and egg. Current production is expected to exceed two tons by end-October, compared to three tons sold in the whole of 2015.
PGFI’s other processed meat products are chicken-pork roll, chicken inasal (barbecue), chicken wanton lumpia (spring roll), beef ball fritters, pork patties, chicken nuggets, meatloaf, rellenong manok (stuffed, roasted chicken), sisig (chopped pig’s face, snout included, and ears), and ground pork.
Buenconsejo said his team continues to hire experts to train the farmers in Sitios Balayan, Mangga, and Torre, all in Barangay Camp 3, Tuba, and in Sitio Sta. Fe, in the Itogon barangay of Ampucao. (Tuba and Itogon are the host towns of Philex Mining Corp.’s Padcal operations in Benguet province.)
“We teach them traditional and organic farming, including pruning,” he stressed, since the coffee shrubs yield a kilo of beans per harvest season from December to March. The foundation’s farmer-beneficiaries tend to about 6,000 coffee shrubs. The.001 kilo per shrub yield rate needs much improvement, Buenconsejo said.
Holy Carabao Holistic Farms, one of PGFI’s sellers of organic vegetables and coffee for the Manila market including S&R and Rustan’s, is known for its non-genetically modified organisms products farmed in healthy soil without the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.
“But we need more,” Buenconsejo said. “Although the market for organic produce is still small and mostly composed of expatriates, we believe this has good potential for growth, as the number of health-conscious consumers is increasing.”
For its organic vegetables lettuce (romaine, baby red romaine, and iceberg), red sugar beets, French beans, radish, potato, carrots, spinach, wombok (Chinese cabbage), flowering pechay (cabbage) the foundation aims to sell more than 3,500 kilos by end-October, higher than the 3,000 sold in all of 2015.
Buenconsejo said he expects the farmers to hit the target, but “this will depend mostly on the increase in soil nutrients.” Thus, the farmers were trained in organic composting, making organic pesticides, and plotting five times a month for one year between 2014 and 2015.
Incorporated in Sept. 2010, the PGFI has been tasked to provide livelihood programs for Philex Mining beneficiaries in the host and neighboring communities of the Padcal operations. Its marketing arm, Px Community Foods and Marketing Inc., was established in the same year.
