A sustainable reforestation program

When the Good Harvest Group began trials in 2001 for an advocacy — mango orchards as a sustainable approach to reforestation — many existing orchard operators thought the group was embarking on an impossible dream.

The trials were noticed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Region 3 which immediately asked the company to submit a comprehensive production and reforestation plan that then became the basis for an award of the socialized industrial forest management (SIFMA) over initially 1,000 hectares of bald forest lands in Bagac, Bataan. Of this area, 300 hectares are now fully planted with mango trees for export.

Good Harvest chose Bagac because of its soil condition; its ideal location (protected naturally by two mountain ranges) and its having a natural water reserve area where the company gets water for the farm and other resort facilities like the swimming pool.

The Good Harvest Group, headed by CEO Ralph W. Lopez, is composed of Good Harvest Orchards Marketing Co. and Good Harvest AgroResources Marketing Corp., which is directly in charge of contract farming operations.

Lopez said that at the rate his company has been successfully attracting tree investors and concluding contract farming agreements for several hundred thousand trees, "we might be asking DENR to expand our SIFMA areas sooner than later."

"My project simply democratizes ownership of the orchard and its fruits by getting in investors that place minimal upfront investments while my companies maintain and manage their farms and markets the produce for them in exchange for harvest-based sharing agreement," Lopez said.

"Many Filipinos want to get into the mango export business but do not have land and the money to get into orchard and export marketing operations. Also, many Filipinos would love to pitch in their share of reforestation and forest preservation for their country’s future generations but don’t have the means and the knowhow to do so," Loepz explained.

The choice of Bagac as the orchard site jibes with the company’s 12-point farm services and technology (FS&T) program and the mango farming and exporting (MFE) program, which ensure optimum quality and export scale quantity. Both programs are patented to the company.

The company uses its patented 12-point Farming Services & Technology (FS &T) system that calls for strict and scientific site selection, gene pooling, daily planting, nurturing and caring and application of high grade eco friendly pest control and nutrients.

SIFMA is being granted by DENR to companies and organizations that commit to reforest the bald mountains and former forest lands of the country either with hardwood or with fruit trees.

Good Harvest does it both ways: it plants rows upon rows of mango trees side by side with rows of hardwood that serves as its natural biosecurity from harsh winds and storms. This scheme also becomes the natural source of organic fertilizer for both the mango and hardwood trees, Lopez said.

Lopez got his inspiration for the mango orchard for export venture from an earlier study of the World Trade Organization stating that "the Philippines can solve poverty through mango exports."

Lopez said that although the Philippines holds the Guiness record for the "best and sweetest mango variety out of 1,168 cultivars around the world, it supplies only 2.5 percent of total world demand."

"The room for growth in our mango exports is truly immense and Good Harvest opened the opportunity to engage in the lucrative export business to entrepreneurs, organizations, unions and even foreign fruit buying companies," Lopez said.

Plant spacing utilized by Good Harvest is seven meters by seven meters with constant pruning of the crown to ensure that soil nutrients would be best used by the fruits and not wasted on unwanted branches, twigs and leaves, explained Lopez.

Its patented 12-point Farm Services and Technology (FST) program initially targeted to plant one million hectares to export quality mango in six to eight years.

Assisting Lopez in the orchard business is mango specialist Antonio Rola, professional farm managers, foresters and veteran exporters.

Good Harvest’s unique turnkey mango farming venture jibes closely with the government’s efforts to create jobs and livelihood opportunities, enhance the environment through reforestation and alleviate poverty by increasing the country’s competitiveness in the global mango market through improved productivity. DENR in fact invited Good Harvest to implement its orchard program throughout the country, he said.