At the start of the pandemic, we wanted to be far away from the urban setting and be closer to nature as much as possible. One of us has a home in Cavite that allows us to escape from our Pasig city life. Both of us have been working in a corporate setting within Ortigas, Pasig for many years (and are currently still actively working in this setting).
Setting Foot on the Farm
We didn’t have direct goals for developing a farm before the pandemic. I was focused on building my career in digital marketing and I only saw opportunities in this industry. However, when we set foot on our farm, only then were we able to realize all the amazing opportunities this land could give us.
Starting an agriculture journey will always have its challenges. When we acquired our farmland, it was not ready for us to just start planting seeds. There were coffee trees and banana trees at every other meter, and there were neither water nor electricity sources whatsoever. We spent several
months converting our farmland to make it suitable for planting vegetables and citrus.
Facing Unknown Difficulties
Along our agriculture journey, we are facing challenges that are completely different from what we’re used to in a corporate setting. Challenges that require a lot of strength and physical energy, as well as the need to learn the technicalities of using fertilizers, pesticides, and so on. There were so many
possibilities! And with the wealth of information available online—from YouTube videos, Facebook communities, e-commerce solutions, and more—we are often faced with unlimited choices and opinions. Sometimes they’re helpful and sometimes you confuse yourself even more.
Until now, when it’s been more than 2 years since we started our agriculture journey, we have equipped ourselves with proper discernment and patience in making decisions for the farm. We are open-minded about the fact that we won’t always have the answers to the challenges we face right away but we seek our best judgement through researching and consulting experts. And the best thing about agriculture is that you can always try again and improve the next time.
A Wonderful Entrepreneurial Journey
We have embarked on an entrepreneurial journey where our farm will be integral to our livelihood. We are setting up to establish agribusiness opportunities for our family. At the start of 2024, we started the operation of our quail farm, which we also documented on YouTube. And in the next few months, we are looking to establish our bottled food brand that uses raw materials from our farm, such as our calamansi and hot peppers.
If we want to have a bright future in agriculture in this country, we need to start elevating how young people see farmers and the agriculture industry as a whole. And the reason why we proactively document our journeys and publish them on our social media channels is to inspire young people like us to get into farming. We have received wonderful comments where young people are also dreaming of something similar, and we want to help them as much as we can to realize that those dreams are possible!