AVANT GARDENER Yvette Tan There’s a story about Nick Joaquin that’s been going around the creative writing circle for as long as I can remember. It’s said that during a writer’s workshop, the National Artist got so annoyed at a participant's work that he allegedly told the poor workshop...
AVANT GARDENER Yvette Tan In history class, we learn that the Philippines has had a robust trade with China for centuries before the arrival of the Spanish. Before the ethnic Chinese who had settled in the Philippines were rounded up by the Spanish and forced to live in enclaves (among other...
AVANT GARDENER Yvette Tan A farmer friend posted a meme of a sign on a farm that said in Tagalog: “Visitors are coming! Lock up your plants!” Something a lot of farmers deal with that isn’t talked about a lot is petty theft. We’re not talking about sacks of produce or fertilizer or a bunch...
AVANT GARDENER Yvette Natalie Tan We tend to not pay a lot of attention to salt. Perhaps it’s because we’re an archipelago in the tropics, so sun and seawater, the magic combination that creates salt, is easy to come by. And yet, despite being an archipelago with many different salt making...
Avant Gardener Yvette Natalie Tan Many people think that farming is just planting seeds and harvesting crops. They don’t understand that like any business, it entails a whole production process, and that money may need to be spent in different areas along the way. Raf Dioniso of Make a Difference...
AVANT GARDENER Yvette Natalie Tan Just what exactly is needed to produce a grain of rice? Quite a lot of labor and capital. Despite rice being a staple of the Pinoy dining table, not many Filipinos understand how the country’s favorite grain goes from binhi (seed) to bigas (milled rice). When...
AVANT GARDENER Yvette Natalie Tan I was recently asked to give a lay person's overview on the country’s food security situation for Bahay Kubo Kitchens organized by Mesa ni Misis and FEED (Farmer Enterprise & Economic Development) as part of the United Nations’ Food Systems Summit. Here’s...
AVANT GARDENER Yvette Natalie Tan Food security has always been a serious issue for the Philippines, particularly because a nation that calls itself an agricultural country shouldn’t have citizens who go hungry. This was the case before the pandemic, and now it’s only gotten worse. The week has...
AVANT GARDENER Yvette Natalie Tan Before humans had access to science’s ability to explain natural phenomena, they attributed everything they couldn’t understand to supernatural beings and rearranged their lives in such a way so as not to upset these powerful and invisible creatures. According...
AVANT GARDENER Yvette Natalie Tan The Busa Mountain Range (BMR) straddles the provinces of Sarangani and South Cotabato in southern Mindanao. According to Kier Mitchel E. Pitogo, resident wildlife biologist and project development officer of the PASu AVPL, “it is one of the last remaining primary...
AVANT GARDENER Yvette Natalie Tan Not all honey available in the market is pure. According to Wilfrido “Jonji” S. de Jesus Jr. of Two Bees Apiary in Iloilo City, so-called “fake” honey isn’t actually fake, but most probably either honey made by bees who have been fed sugar water...
AVANT GARDENER Yvette Tan Agriculture is everywhere, even in films that have nothing to do with it. People went wild in 2019 when the end of Avengers Infinity War showed how big baddie Thanos, after making half the world’s population disappear with the literal snap of his fingers, didn’t gloat...
