Small scale farming is our solution

Sarah Claudio is a seasoned entrepreneur in the retail businesses in Davao City. She has opened a print shop, two chicken franchises, is a partner in fashion retail and is a licensee of ECHOstore, a natural and organic store. She, however, went in a slightly different direction which she now calls her passion project – Verdeli farms. Though still connected to her ECHOstore advocacy of natural and organic, Verdeli is now a mini school where visitors can learn basic “grow your own food” solutions.

Why did she shift her focus to farming? Five words. “For the love of Mom.” Sarah’s mom always dreamt of having her own small vegetable farm where she could source healthier food for the family of five. But Nelia (her mom) passed some eight years ago, leaving her dreams behind. Sarah, meantime, answered the call of education in Italy and enrolled at the University of Gastronomic Sciences – which is known as the Slow Food University and UNISG (Ooh-nis-gi) for Italians. For six months she was exposed to how Italians in the small towns of Pollenzo (where the school is) and Bra (where she lived) cooked food from nearby sources. She relates that when food is served to you, the staff can tell you where each ingredient comes from, usually from local sources.

The stay in Pollenzo also exposed her to farmers markets where you get to meet the producers of the vegetables and fruits in season. She also knew the butcher, the fishmonger, the breadmaker, among many other artisans. She then brought that experience home and is developing Verdeli farm to be such a source of natural and organic food.

She started it on a one-hectare piece of property, with just a small area devoted to planting vegetables. In fact, she even teaches “square meter gardening,” where one can grow vegetables in a minuscule piece of land, leaving no excuse for anyone not to grow his or her own food at home. Urban setting? She has tower garden farming as a solution for tight spaces, even patios of condos and rooftops of offices. Though these two “small scale” types are now common practices (especially during the pandemic when food was scarce), Sarah believes this is the scale we should think about. Something every family can go into. And with millions of people doing “small” solutions, that is the scale we want to see for a sustainable planet. If it can be done in many small towns of Europe, I am certain we can try doing it in the Philippines.

It was a practice many years ago to have vegetable patches or plots in schoolyards so children will have an appreciation of where food comes from. I heard that the Department of Education (DepEd) has brought back this activity, where kids can get their hands dirty touching and feeling soil and learning where food comes from. We can always plan to let the schoolchildren take these produce home and eat what they sowed and nurtured. I am sure it does something for the soul. That is how fulfilling it feels to be able to taste what you planted.

For Sarah, it has become a passion and a purpose to nurture her organic farm not just as a sustainable solution to sourcing safe and organic food, but to share the experience. She invites her diners and customers who make the 45-minute drive from the city to Calinan, where the farm is located.

The farm has a café and a store but has facilities even for team-building activities or just for communing with Nature by couples, families or even a whole clan. Children will now see free range chickens – those that roam about freely eating grub and other natural food. Not chickens who are just sent out of their coops for a few minutes to comply with the requirements to be labelled “free range.” Here, the chickens are free to roam and give beautiful eggs and meat for her diners.

The farm of Sarah is a “doable” example of growing your own food and staying small. This can also scale but not owned by just one person or a corporate behemoth, but millions of small-scale farmers like Sarah. That may just be the solution to healthier food for all in the years to come.

The idea of fresh farmers’ markets also still happens in many towns across the country. A niece of mine who wanted to cook sinampalukang manok tells me that in their town’s market in Bulacan, vendors still sell fresh sampalok (tamarind) shoots (young leaves), live native chickens and other vegetables for the hearty soup, a Bulacan specialty.

This is why chefs who want to preserve local ingredients go to local markets instead of supermarkets. Chef Rhea SyCip of Tagaytay goes to wet markets to find heirloom ingredients before the grandmothers disappear along with these practices. If you do not buy it, they will stop selling it. So, as a consumer, you are a co-producer when you demand that they continue to sell local ingredients.

It is interesting to know that after many years of promoting batuan, a sour fruit used in Ilonggo specials like kansi and kadyos baboy langka (KBL), a friend found it in Balintawak market. While still only one store sells it, it is good news for all of us who used to import the fruit from Negros. I feel our efforts are paying off. Thanks to Wofex, Madrid Fusion and the late chef Margarita Forés, today’s young chefs look for these local ingredients already.

And thanks to people like Sarah Claudio who, while honoring her Mom through her passion project, inspires other young people to start growing their own food. Small is (indeed) beautiful as E.F. Schumacher said in the book of the same title decades ago.

Watch out for the podcast as I asked Sarah to explain how small can indeed be beautiful and be the solution to our food crisis.