A Passion For Organic Agriculture

featured on PhilStar by Domini M. Torrevillas, From the Stands

A 50-minute drive from Magallanes, Makati, will take you to the Villegas organic and hobby farm in Malvar, Batangas. It’s a developed agriculturally landscaped organic farm complex that mixes nature’s beauty through ornamental and vegetable gardening in the midst of sustainable growth of agro-forest and fruit trees, crops, livestock, and fish. It’s a farm worth visiting by those with a passion for a wellness and stress-free farming environment.

The passionate developer of this dream project is Pablito “Pabs” M. Villegas, whose love for farming and agriculture began when he was a child pulling weeds and planting seedlings and watching them grow alongside his father, a small farmer and tenant. His enchantment with the soil made him work for a degree in agriculture from the University of the Philippines-Los Banos, and a master of science in agricultural economics at the University of Georgia in the United States. Taking up these courses, Pabs told me, “strengthened my belief that proper agricultural policies and sustainable farming methods could provide solutions to economic and social problems, particularly rural poverty and food insecurity that have become widespread in the world.”

This conviction was further reinforced as he took up duties as field staff and consultant with a number of international organizations, among them the UNDP Food and Agricultural Organization, World Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development, the European Union, and the consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Altogether, he worked in 20 countries in Asia, the Pacific and Africa, in the fields of agricultural and rural development, agricultural policy and planning, rural microfinance, food security and poverty reduction.

He was too young to retire, but he did, in December 2003, to make a dream come true. That month, with his savings, he and his wife, Prof. Susan Baladad-Villegas of UP-Manila, formally started the organic and hobby farm in Batangas. The farm produced organic vegetables and herbs by March 2004, introduced free range chicken in 2006, and a small aquaculture pond in 2009, thus establishing an integrated crop-livestock-fish farm with organic fertilizer, crop protection and zero waste management protocols and best practices.

Pabs says the farm adheres to the strict use of biological (natural) crop nutrition and protection system to aid a healthier lifestyle. It serves as a training ground for farming and healthy lifestyle enthusiasts, smallholders and agribusiness professionals as well as children and youth. It has a greenhouse for high-value and off-season crops, a nursery and technology demonstration facilities.

With an emerging Sustainable Agriculture & Entrepreneurship (SAGE) Learning Center, the farm is now a busy place for “Lakbay Aral” (study tours) in organic and sustainable agriculture with two to three days apprenticeship training in organic farming technologies. Pabs says the four basic principles of organic agriculture (health, ecology, care and fairness), are embedded in the farm owners’ motto, “We Care for your Health; we Nurture the Earth.”

With his passion for wellness and adherence to sustainable agriculture, Pabs developed the farm into a smallholder residential farm estate. The three-hectare complex accommodates nine residential smallholder farms, each farm module provided with piped potable and irrigation water, and access to the SAGE learning center, its greenhouse, nursery, organic inputs and materials production house.

These residential farms can raise assorted lettuce cropping, herb production, natural-grown and free-range colored chickens, ducks, goats, as well as fish. These can easily be raised with the SAGE learning center providing organic fertilizer, vermi-compost, and offering post-harvest handling, food processing, and natural food gourmet demonstrations. Add-on attractions for potential leisure farmers are already existing fruit bearing mangoes, coconut, santol, jackfruit, bananas, mahogany, narra and gmelina trees.

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