ADAMS, Ilocos Norte—If Davao City makes it as the fruit basket of the Philippines, a small town of culturally diverse indigenous peoples of Adams is poised to become Ilocos Norte’s fruit bowl, growing best exotic fruit varieties for years now.
Home to the famous bugnay (wild berry) wine and other tropical wines reaching local and international markets, the fifth-class municipality of Adams is composed of one village and five sitios—Maligligay, Malaggao, Sinidangan, Cadisan and Bucarot. It is covered by lush vegetation, cloud-capped mountains, crystal clear rivers, waterfalls and functional hanging bridges.
Sprawling on a land area of 159.31 square kilometers, its climate and topography resembles that of Baguio City as small farm owners also grow organic fruits and vegetables such as lychees, rambutan, lansones, bugnay, strawberry, beans, spinach and lettuce, among others.
Residents here used to travel more than an hour of dirty road going up and down, traversing river boulders overlooking deep ravines and cliffs. During rainy season, one cannot simply go out of the house to buy necessities in neighboring town’s commercial center as passing through the rugged terrain may cause disaster in this landslide-prone road. Of the 21 towns and two cities of Ilocos Norte, Adams is often isolated during typhoon.
But this is not the case anymore. In early 2014, the Department of Tourism and the Department of Public Works and Highways converged to improve the roads leading to Adams, with its potential ecotourism destinations which are now starting to lure both local and foreign tourists here.
Banking on the concept of community-based sustainable tourism development, the town’s first lady Bielmaju Waley Bawingan, in her capacity as chairman of the municipal tourism council, organized associations of men and women engaged in home-stay operation business, food processing, cultural presentations, and wine-making business, among others.
Bawingan, who is also the head consultant of the “One OFW, One Fruit Program” of the municipality, has enjoined overseas Filipino workers in Adams to support the program and create a sustainable livelihood for OFW families back home.
Launched in 2014, the program is being spearheaded by the Municipal Agriculture Office (MAO), assisting OFW families to set up their own organic fruit farm. They, likewise, affiliated themselves with various research and academic institutions such as the Benguet State University, Nueva Viscaya Research Center and the Philippine Fruits Association to ensure the sources of fruit seedlings are the best varieties and it can be adopted in Adams town.
To date, at least eight OFWs have embarked on the fruit-planting program of the municipality with hectares of longkong lansones, rambutan, sweet tamarind, guyabano, bugnay, pomelo and lemon trees now being planted and supervised by families of OFWs here.
Under this scheme, the local government unit of Adams through its MAO shall provide interested OFWs superior varieties of fruit trees sourced out from existing local farms in Adams.
In return, the OFW family will ensure the proper care and maintenance of the fruit tree until it bears fruit. The OFW shall provide for labor expense such as for land preparation, planting, maintenance and farm inputs, like fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides.
These must be agreed upon by both parties through a memorandum of agreement citing the specific terms and conditions including the farmer-cooperators willingness to share the scions of the fruit trees for asexual reproduction by other interested individuals from Adams.
PNA
Image credits: PNA