Queen of the Gazebo: teaching
farmers to be agri-preneurs
Unless you talk about towns with the most people who sailed off to other islands to find good fortunes, Loon would be high up on the list. Not in farming.
But then, Barangay Basac has been there for a reason.
Getting to the garden which Gazebo de LoonDON keeps, could probably frustrate one.
For who could imagine a garden pocket forest hiding behind a fence right along a highway in a town not easily associated with farming.
In fact, years back, the same place now transformed into a pocket forest used to be indistinguishable from the rest of the roadside properties in Basac Loon.
This now, is where the largest concentration of araucaria evergreens thrive in a square hectare. And with vegetables, spices and pockets of ornamentals dotting the undergrowth, it lends the feel of being in the middle of a secondary forest somewhere far, if not for the occasional buzz of a vehicle passing the highway a few meters away.
The nondescript signage by the roadside is too ordinary to notice, unless you are a farmer who intends to get there to attend one of its training courses.
For the food hungry traveler and the vegan who has been seeking for an honest to goodness fill, the place, like the food one is craving, is hand to find.
ORGANIC GARDEN SALAD AT Gazebo de LoonDON. Homegrown and filled with the greens grown under the shades of araucarias.
Beyond the gate, overgrown vegetation has taken over a two-vehicle driveway, the second floor restaurant to the right stands cozy for a modest group of diners. Up the flight of winding bamboo steps, the restaurant can easily pass as a comfy my-coffee time nook, or an acoustic guitar or a novel session.
Off the other side is the air-conditioned farmers’ training hall, tucked underneath a viewdeck that gets one, a glimpse of the Cebu strait, and the rolling ridges of Maribojoc mountains.
Gazebos, some native huts and the main house, a false cabin cruiser coffee-shop in a pond, walkways that meander around the 2,400 square meter demo farm, is more of a showcase of a tropical secondary forest gardenthan the immaculately kept English gardens in one’s idea of a gazebo.
But, how did they convert this property into this awe and how long did it take them?
The property was acquired when Paterno the husband, whom neighbors and friends fondly call Nonoy, wanted a place in Basac that is near the highway; their ancestral house is over a kilometer up the hills.
Nonoy, a book keeper, cruise ship chef and a newly self-confessed farmer and his wife Ma Reina Perez, noticed tourists in town from bed and breakfast inns loiter around in search of good food. The decision for a restaurant with a viewdeck was tantalizing. So they built one.
Reina was born in Mindanao and ventured in Manila, where she met Nonoy. For want of the true feeling of the rustic life, they would find their free days and vacations in Loon, Bohol.
“We were supposed to open the restaurant in March of 2020, but the pandemic held us up in Manila, and then the typhoon destroyed what we were supposed to open,”Reina, a chemist by profession but peaked her career in early retirement from a huge multi-national semi-conductor company, as manager, said.
The restaurant, a modest homey section in the second floor of the building that has a kitchen in the first floor, is built of wood and bamboo, embellished with potted ornamental plants and vines, that kind that evokes a classic Filipino garden house.
JUST BEHIND THE GATE. Gazebo de LoonDon’s resto is on the second floor while the ground floor is where the kitchen and processing areas are manned by farmers and acts as hands on area for learning.
“We have a 1.3 hectare farm up in the hills, a little over a kilometer from here,” modestly said Ma. Reina Perez, a self-confessed farmer trainer who is more of a technocrat transplanted in the barren lands of Loon.
Married to Nonoy Perez, of Basac, Loon, Reina always longed for the provincial life.
A graduate of BS in Chemistry, Reina worked her way up the corporate ladder until she became the only female operations manager of the multi-national company working with secure products, programming micro chips.
Working with multi-national corporation means being available at all times as Asian working hours are the exact opposite of European and American work hours.
With that kind of work, Reina waged her health.
With that environment, a few days of vacation in Bohol was her way of reconnecting with her missed life away from the bustle of traffic and de-stressing.
Settled in Cavite with their kids, the call for home rang for Paterno and Reina, that they made sure every vacation gets them to Bohol.
The pandemic however had them in Manila, where they realized they may have the money, but they cant go out and buy stuff.
With Paterno who just turned into a senior citizen then, quarantine restrictions going out of the house were stricter for him
QUEEN OF THE GAZEBO. Reina Perez who used to manage a multinational semi conductor company, has finally found her love: farming and helping farmers become entrepreneurs.
Reina, whose life started to dwindle, enrolled into a nearby Villar Sipag Farm School to pick up anything she could get. She would later reecho these to Nonoy, who after the pandemic, also enrolled in as many courses they can get, hoping to apply these to their property in Loon.
“It was also the time when I realized that my passion has started to align with the course I finished,”Reina recalled.
Well into the complex world of chemistry, Reina’s family leaned towards it, her elder sister worked as a chief chemist in a soda company in the country.
The Sipag school taught hermore than enough to get into the couple’s new passion: farming and becoming agri-preneurs.
Homing finally in Bohol after 35 years of highly stressful life in a semi-conductor company, its finally farm life for Nonoy and Reina.
In Bohol, still wanting more, they tapped the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) of the Department of Agriculture (DA), after getting confident that they can work in coconut farming and rabbit propagation for meat.
As chef, baker and food technologist, Reina and Nonoy ventured into vegan food, and the organic preparation of organic food for the restaurant.
PERSONALIZED TOURS. The Perezes conduct personalized tours and guide their guests into understanding the complex world of agribusiness.
Working in the corporate world taught Reina who to talk to, where to go, that she immediately found the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Training Institute, which she had as partner for more training and resource access.
Sent for training of trainors by the ATI in Surigao, and Farmer Business School in Tuburan, Reina absorbed everything to bring their facility in Loon play a vital role in educating farmers, and making them not just good farmers but also agripreneurs.
Here, we provide hands on training on sustainable farming practices, crop management, agribusiness strategies, field demonstration, culinary medicine, and knowledge sharing opportunities for farmer skills development in innovative farm technologies and equipment, best practices in organic, environmentally friendly practices, she said.
One time, while in Tagbilaran, the couple chanced upon a coconut forum, where both seeped in everything they could get, as Nonoy has coconuts in his home in Basac. From there, they brought the technology home to coconut farmers in the barangay.
“We had to re-organize as coconut farmers. Some had ideas that there is politics in handling out the benefits, but, what it really was farmers just do not understand that individuals can not avail but members or organizations can,” Reina, who was later accused as a strict trainor, said.
FROM COCO TO YOU. Gazebo de Loondon displays their small coconut farmers coops products, which they processed from either the coconut or the plants they introduced as intercrops.
Coconut farmers here were not in the Registry system for basic sectors in agriculture and the National Coconut Farmers Registry System (NCFRS) so we got them registered,all 38 of them, so they could access benefits and assistance.
Then, while we planted coconuts so they could see how it is done and follow, we built on their discipline, strictly adhering to the proper methods of coco-farming, and intercropping so they could earn more.
Discipline, hard work, this is the way we do it in the corporate world, we have to be results oriented, she added, suggesting that farming could also be done this way.
Now keeping the farm as Loon Small Coconut Farmers Cooperative base, the small lot has also become a Learning Site for Agriculture (LSA) as accredited by the DTI.
An LSA also allows the site to be incorporated in the Department of Tourism Farm Tourism sites, she explained.
With intercrops, the farmers earn additional money from cash crops, to which Reina helped process, to even up the value.
Now, we ventured with our new women’s organization called Bohol Purple Women, as we introduced ube inter-cropped in the coconut undergrowth.
Since coconut can be raw materials for different products, Reina assisted the women to make products from the tree of life, from food to wellness products and perfumes, noting that in the last two years, they have prepared 23 new products from coconut and its intercrop.
As a chemist, Reina teaches the women on making perfumes, focusing on the oil as base and the essences of farm plants, creating new affordable and ingenious scents close to one’s heart.
PARFUM. Loon coconut farmers products now include perfumes which the chemist in Reina helped to come up with the right amount of mixes for the perfect scents of home.
Bent on guiding farmers to be agri preneurs, the coop has allowed farmers to sell their products digitally, using an electronic cash platform, to further help the farmers gain financial independence and inclusivity.
As to the question: how long did it take them to make a pocket forest out of a barren hillside? Less than five years.
And from managing the most sterile manufacturing environment where workers wear clean protective suits, Reina has managed to slip into the world of dirt, something that has brought her home. And if youre still wondering how they did it, find the couple at Gazebo de LoonDON. (RAHC)
