It doesn’t sound real, but that’s exactly what Ralph W. Lopez, president and chief executive officer of agribusiness firm Good Harvest Orchards Marketing Corp. is pitching these days.
"We have the best mango in the world, it is a high value crop but unfortunately, we do not have enough volume to supply the global market but through the various business models my company has developed, we could be the biggest supplier of Super Mango which cannot be grown anywhere else. We could actually use this to bring in dollars and give jobs to more people," said Lopez.
At the 100,000-hectare Good Harvest mango orchard in Bagac and Morong, Bataan, Lopez and his officer-in-charge Antonio Rola, who is also the head of the National Mango Action Team are plotting their ambitious goal of planting one million mango trees and are convinced their proposed micro mango orchard (MMO) scheme should beat problems related to growing Super Mango.
These problems include acquiring a big hectarage to provide economies of scale and a huge capital for orchard management, installing the best technology, and finally, in finding markets overseas.
"The focus of our business is contract farming and farm management services. We are tasked with planting and maintaining the orchard for other entities such as individuals, families, corporations, cooperatives and joint venture partners with both local and foreign companies. Of course the contract farming arrangement will vary because some will prefer to start investing from raw land to be developed as a mango orchard, while others will want to just rehabilitate existing mango orchards to setting up farm management systems," said Lopez.
Good Harvest will manage the farm free of charge for the first five years. Once harvesting starts on the fifth year, the company will charge an orchard management system fee of 30 percent fixed from the total net profit.
The first few harvests will not yield as much but as each tree matures, the average tonnage per hectare will increase yearly, especially with advances in technology. The average lifespan of a mango tree is 75 years which means at least a yearly recurring income of P30,000 to P50,000 based on current mango farm income and exchange rates.
While still selling its unique concept in the Philippines, Good Harvest already bagged a contract to plant 10,000 mango trees for a Chinese company and it also got a contract for the maintenance of a 100-hectare mango orchard in Nueva Ecija as well as a proposal from a union of government employees which are keen on investing in 200,000 mango trees.
Lopez said these contracts could contribute as much as 20 percent of the country’s annual export volumes.
"There is really a huge untapped market. The government’s goal is to raise our world market share from 2.5 percent to seven percent in five years and this requires at least 300,000 hectares more of mango farms," noted Lopez.
Thus, to convince more investors to put their money into mango farming, the company is also encouraging their existing MMOs to acquire a business license from Good Harvest and go into direct selling and referral marketing. In other words, networking. Through direct selling, each MMO can earn a sizeable commission from selling orchards while getting close to their goal of planting more mango trees.
The company’s related projects include putting up a meditation and nature park designed by top architect and contractor Felino "Jun" Palafox. The eight-hectare park will include a countryclub and agro-tourism center and farm residential projects.
At the same time, Good Harvest will undertake a reforestation project in the area by planting fast growing trees like gmelina. The company was recently granted a Socialized Forest Management Agreement by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Lopez added that the company this early is already anticipating an expansion and has identified future sites in the provinces of Pangasinan, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, Iloilo and Zamboanga.