AVANT GARDENER A lot of farms in the Philippines are made up of small plots of land, which is why the government encourages the formation of cooperatives, to take advantage of economies of scale. The Philippine Chamber of Cooperatives was created to further increase the opportunities that...
AVANT GARDENER I spent part of the holidays watching a couple of Kdramas and one thing I noticed was that both placed a value on farming but totally in passing. If you were a casual watcher and not someone on the lookout for agricultural content, they would have been easy to miss. Beware,...
AVANT GARDENER Last week, I guested on The Powerful Komiksman Podcast hosted by Jerald Dorado, aka komiksman, which can be viewed in full on YouTube. We were introduced by Jean Karl Gaverza who runs Philippine Spirits, a website dedicated to the various mythological creatures that can be...
AVANT GARDENER It’s the second week of the new year, the week when—let’s face it—everyone really returns to work, and then just barely. As we all know, many agricultural workers aren’t able to take long breaks. Pests aren’t going to stay away from your field just because it’s...
AVANT GARDENER The Philippines is in a precarious position health-wise. Not only are many Filipinos at risk for malnutrition, many are equally at risk for obesity, which itself is a form of malnutrition. “[According to the National Nutrition survey done by the Food and Nutrition Research...
AVANT GARDENER The best way to stop food from being wasted is to eat it. We’ve all been told as children to finish our food because there are people who have nothing to eat. This is a simplified explanation of a complex problem. There are many reasons some people have no access to food....
AVANT GARDENER Do we know why despite being an archipelago, our locally caught fish can be prohibitively expensive despite small fishers being one of the poorest sectors of Philippine society? It comes down to the amount of effort needed to get the fish from the fisher’s boat to the consumer’s...
AVANT GARDENER Plastic, with its virtually nonexistent biodegradability is one of the most concerning waste products polluting our planet today. According to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Philippines is the third largest source of plastic waste in the ocean...
AVANT GARDENER Most of us know that the reason food staples are expensive is because it passes through many hands before it can get from the farmer to the consumer. If we could shorten that chain, it would make basic household ingredients cheaper. That’s what Raffy Tesoro, Philippine textile...
AVANT GARDENER Even though agriculture is seen as a waning industry, more and more people are waking up to the fact that it is an essential one that is integral to national security. Because of this, businessmen are slowly capitalizing on the industry’s potential, not just as a moneymaker, but as...
AVANT GARDENER Eating a plant-based diet has become a popular lifestyle choice for many people. For this vegan food brand that specializes in creating food normally associated with meat, ensuring that their products are delicious, healthy, preservative-free, and supportive of local farmers is just...
AVANT GARDENER Amid the pandemic, a friend sent me a care package of artisan chocolate from a then-new chocolatier Plentitude Chocolate. I like their single origin craft bars, the “single origin” referring to the farm the cacao used in each bar comes from, but what I fell in love with is their...
