Impressed and inspired

Being in the company of organic farmers Pam and Batchoy Henares was sort of a reunion after having visited them to learn more about vermicomposting. Now we were together to visit the various projects of the Alturas Group of Companies (AGC) in Bohol tasked with taking the perspective of how the various activities of the enterprise can transform their "wastes" into more useful matter. Laila Viliran, executive assistant for Research and Development, was our very thoughtful and hospitable host and resource person during the trip.

Off we went to visit the Marcela Rice and Feed Mill complex in Lumangog, Ubay, Bohol. The integrated facility combined technology from Japan and the Netherlands to produce well milled, as well as, polished rice at two hundred 50-kilo bags per hour. One immediately notices that the milling operations were dust free and had an air-conditioned control room, which monitored the progress of operations. The rice mill was attached to a rice-buying operation, which sourced rice from Mindanao.

The by-products of the rice mill went to the feed mill operations, which had a capacity of 10 tons per hour. The mill produced feeds from the piggery, poultry, fish and prawn pond operations of the agribusiness division leaving only 20 percent of their production available for sale.

We followed the trail of the feeds to the tilapia and prawn ponds. They raise tilapia to "green" the water before the water is used to raise black tiger prawns. After which the water is then used to raise tilapia again to "clean" the water before the water is discharged back to the environment. The prawns are sold to Bohol Agro Dev. Corp, which processed 600 tons of prawn last year of which 90 percent of their products were from Bohol based prawn growers.

When the ponds are dried, it was the muck or the top layer of soil of the pond bottom that was covered by fish and prawn excrement, feed residue and shrimp shells that was the concern of management. Over fried bananas and coconut juice, the executives with Pam and Batchoy discussed the possible use of African night crawlers to detoxify the muck and in this way produce fertile soil addiment for the corn and rice growing projects of the business and at the same time responsibly work with nature in their solid waste disposal.

Breakfast was served at the piggery, which had 3,000 sows. They send to market 80 heads a day. The integration of the agribusiness enterprise from crop planting, to feed milling to grow-out up to the marketing of their produce and the volume of business was very impressive. The group of companies' payroll listed 5,000 names. The choice was to be impressed or impressed and inspired.

The later would be more productive as this encouraged me to continue pursuing my organic gardening interest and accept the to challenge to contribute toward making our agricultural sector more productive and responsive to the needs of a fast growing population. To be just impressed would be a fleeting moment at most and nothing would have been learned. Let us end with an anecdote to encourage us to go one further step than just being impressed. A farmer was at a diner one day having lunch when he noticed

an old friend. What really caught his attention was that this friend was wearing an earring. The farmer knew his old buddy to be a fairly conservative fellow, and was curious about his sudden change in "fashion sense." The farmer walked up to him and said, "I didn't know you were into earrings." "Don't make such a big deal, it's only an earring," the fellow replied sheepishly. The farmer was silent for a few minutes, but then his curiosity got the best of him and he asked "So, how long have you been wearing one?" "Ever since my wife found it in my truck," the man replied.*