ALLIED Botanical Corp. (ABC) has showcased its edible landscape in Tayug, Pangasinan, introducing new varieties of vegetables and fruit crops in its annual open house.
Coming out for a new variety of seeds takes more than a year for it has to undergo a thorough process of selection, multilocation trial to market testing before a seed to mass produce.
Some of the new variety of seeds launched this year includes conical pepper the company named Clarabel and jaguar watermelon with its thick rind, which prolongs the fruit’s shelf life and is good for shipping.
Marketing and Sales Manager Edgar Oribiana told the BusinessMirror that this year the company will expand its market, from selling seeds to potted plants like flowers.
“We are coming out with new partners, so we had a bright outlook for expanding our services to farmers,” he said.
ABC also showcased its customized backyard greenhouse, a controlled environment, wherein home-based farmers can still grow crops during the dry and wet seasons.
ABC equipped its farmers with the latest technology for efficiency and enticing farmers to do the same to minimize labor cost. Drip fertigator and automatic seeder are just some of it.
Sen. Cythia Villar who was the keynote speaker in the event and the chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food expressed her confidence that with seed companies like ABC, the country can compete and survive the Asean integration this 2015.
Villar said in a statement that agricultural sector is being challenged to bolster its contribution to the economy.
Villar also emphasized the help of technology in farming and educating farmers to invest in this technology to further boost their income.
ABC recently partnered with Koppert Biological Systems, a supplier of world-class crop-care products to fight bad bacteria and plant pests organically. ABC is soon to launch its beneficial breed insects and mites that kill pests in the farm.
In terms of sales, pinakbet vegetables like eggplant, tomato, squash, string beans, okra and bitter gourd generate the most earnings. ABC said it also export pechay seeds to Saudi Arabia and grows more than 300 varieties of seeds, some of which are locally bred.
ABC also introduced their soil-less planting called hydroponics, where plants are grown in water.
Since the Philippines is prone to disasters, ABC was among the corporations severely affected by typhoons that hit the country in recent years. However, ABC still donated vegetable seeds to farmers in the most-devastated areas, including Leyte.
ABC is a distributor of different varieties of seeds, plants, herbs, sprouts, fertilizers, and farm equipment.
Cyril John Barlongo / Special to the BusinessMirror
Image credits: CJ Barlongo