In Barangay Atisan, San Pablo, Laguna, a corporation serves as partner with the community to conserve biodiversity while promoting rural development and economic enterprise.
Broadchem Corp., established in 1989 as a product development and distribution company for new and emerging products for the animal health industry, is engaging community folks to conserve the local biodiversity while earning a living through its Environment, Livelihood and Education Community Social Responsibility Program (CSR).
Broadchem Founder and former Agriculture Undersecretary for Livestock Jose C. Reaño initiated the CSR Program in 2004, by transforming an 18-hectare marginal and barren upland into a healthy ecosystem.
Reaño engaged jobless community folks to plant bignay trees and taught them to how to conserve the biodiversity. Bignay bears sweet and luscious small berries but is not a popular fruit.
“When I arrived in Atisan, people cut trees for livelihood. Now they plant bignay trees to earn money. Broadchem set up a wine-making facility using the improved wine-making recipe I learned from my alma mater, UP [University of the Philippines] Los Baños,” Reaño said.
“Bignay berries are made into high-quality table wine, whose taste is comparable to imported ones but has more antioxidants. We are now marketing our bignay wine under the brand Saint Ambrose,” he explained.
Bignay is the center of an integrated farm system which Reaño introduced in Atisan. In between trees are indigenous vegetables and other fruit-bearing trees which not only provide sufficient economic returns for the community but also serves as sanctuary for birds.
The multicropping strategy ensures soil fertility. To ensure a variety of sources of income, Broadchem introduced cattle and native-chicken raising, as well as bee keeping.
Natural ways in managing crop pests and diseases were also introduced. With the return of vegetation in the once-barren upland, local biodiversity also returned, notably the hornbills.
“We only plant indigenous crops to ensure that the local ecosystem stay healthy and safe from invasive alien species,” Reaño added, an active member of the San Pablo City Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The 13-year corporate and community partnership bore new business ventures. From bignay wine, they now produce jams, jellies, fruit juices and fruit cakes.
Integrated with the livelihood and biodiversity conservation programs is the scholarship program for children of selected farmers. Reaño sends them for free to the local college—Dalubhasaan ng Lungsod ng San Pablo.
He also donated computer units to the local elementary school.
Through the corporate and community partnership, Atisan’s slash and burn problem was eliminated. The biodiversity and local ecosystem are back in the pink of health. The community folks live in harmony with the environment and have developed good values.
When the members of the local chamber of commerce visited Reaño’s farm, one of its members, Rolando Inciong, the chamber’s PR director, left behind his mobile phone. Reaching the main road after a 30-minute downhill hike, Inciong’s group waited at a jeepney stop. Fifteen minutes later, the group saw two sweat-drenched farmers coming and shouting, “Did anybody leave a phone?”
Livelihood, a healthy biodiversity and good values translate to rural development, a product of corporate and community cooperation.
Today, Reaño continues his advocacy on corporate-community cooperation on biodiversity conservation. He has been a finalist in the recent Asean Champions for Biodiversity of the Asean Centre for Biodiversity. He has served as resource speaker in various Asean environmental fora.
Reaño is currently the chairman of two committees—Agriculture and Tourism—of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry in San Pablo City (PCCI-SPC) and has advocated the involvement of business in conservation.
“With his successful careers in business and government, Joe is now giving back to communities through the local chamber. He is leading our group in promoting the raising of native swine and chicken in San Pablo City. He is also very much involved in agritourism and ecotourism as he is currently developing his area in Barangay Atisan, the highest peak in San Pablo City,” Inciong said, president of PCCI-SPC.
Image credits: PCCI-SPC