A LANDLOCKED province with a rolling terrain that straddles southern Cagayan Valley Region, Nueva Vizcaya is known for its ecotourism destinations, upland farms and rich natural resources blessed with premium mineral deposits.
The province is home to a gold-copper project operated by OceanaGold (Philippines) Inc. (OGPI) at the mining village of Didipio in Kasibu town.
President Aquino has recently awarded OGPI the Presidential Mineral Industry and Environmental Awards (PMIEA) in Malacañang.
Surrounded by large-scale citrus orchards and hillside vegetable farms, the Didipio mine maintains a valuable coexistence of mining and agriculture.
“A couple of months ago, it was in this section of the BusinessMirror where I saw the farm-tourism potentials of the province of Nueva Vizcaya. It was indeed a convincing reason for me to personally discover the enticing landscapes and agricultural excellence of the province as it was written. For a tourism student like me, my first off-campus experience was a farm tour in the upland towns of the province. Incidentally, I was able to join an out-of-town trip with members of the Nueva Vizcaya Environment and Tourism Press Corps that landed us on a pineapple farm in Bagabag town. It was literally a fruitful experience,” said Lorraine Anne, a tourism sophomore from the University of La Salette in Santiago City.
Another coed, an accounting freshman from the Saint Mary’s University (SMU) at the capital town of Bayombong, Dustinne Joy also joined an off-road expedition to a strawberry farm in Kayapa town and, eventually, to a pineapple farm in Bagabag town.
“Like me, many believe that strawberries are only grown in the Cordilleras, but the exotic heart-shaped berries now thrive abundantly in that southwestern municipality of Nueva Vizcaya, which is also known for growing cut flowers and salad vegetables on commercial scale,” she said.
The first village of the province that organically grew strawberries was Malico in Santa Fe in this province. Strawberries are grown in hanging pots under wide-scale green houses.
The Malico farm covered with rainshed applies high-tech centralized and controlled garden operation. High-value salad vegetables, like varieties of lettuce, bell pepper and apple tomatoes, are cultivated in large-scale proportion.
From the Maharlika Highway at the heart of Santa Fe, Malico could be reached via the Imugan trail westward toward the provincial boundary of Pangasinan. The upland village is home to another natural wonder, the picture-perfect Imugan Falls.
Armed with her camera phone, the SMU coed from Solano town committed to share her outdoor experience with schoolmates and friends who would love the pick-and-pay scheme offered by farm owners. From Kayapa, she joined a group that explored the rolling pineapple farms in Bagabag town.
“There is a big difference between online surfing with that of an actual trekking experience with matching fruit-picking on the spot,” Dustinne said.
Zarah, a fresh Hotel and Restaurant Management graduate, also from SMU, seconded Dustinne’s statements after her surprise visit on a garlic farm in Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya.
“Once I saw the bunch of large-size garlic being sorted out right at the farm by local growers, I was enticed to do the same. I just witnessed exactly how a major cooking ingredient is handled in its post-harvest stage,” Sarah said.
The three describe and find their field trips as literal cash flows in action because they claimed they were automatically enticed to buy and personally take home the crops normally sold in local markets.
But for a science senior at the Nueva Vizcaya General Comprehensive High School in the capital town, Chynee Nikole recommends a mine tour to students like her to see the actual mining site of the Didipio operations after winning the poster-making contest sponsored by OGPI last year.
“As a science student, we learned that practically everything that man needs to live is a mining product. Man’s basic needs like food are cooked and processed by kitchen wares made of metals. The pump that draws water from the ground is made of metals, too. Our housing materials—including those used to construct schools where we study and churches where we pray, whether they are wood or concrete—were logged and processed using metal chain saws and concrete mixers. Our clothes are woven and tailored using sewing machines with metal needles. Broadsheets like the BusinessMirror are printed by metal plates and machines. Of course, there are negative angles in every mining operation, but an Environment Compliance Certificate (ECC) could only be issued by the Environmental Management Bureau after a thorough review of the application. These were the basic elements of my drawing,” the young Chynee enumerated like class recitation.
OGPI Senior Vice President for Communications and External Affairs Ramoncito Gozar said that as a flagship Information, Education and Communication (IEC) program of the Didipio Operations, mine tours welcome visitors to the site to educate them, promote responsible utilization of mineral resources, and address concerns related to mining technology and geosciences.
The recently opened Nueva Vizcaya Livelihood and Pasalubong Center along the Maharlika Highway in Barangay Magsaysay at the capital town of Bayombong now caters to motorists and travelers. The center showcases indigenous handicrafts, locally processed-food products and a Mrs. Baker’s coffee shop.
Image credits: Leonardo Perante II