Unsolicited Advice: If then, they can call it Amancio Nicolas’ Cordon Food Forest. “Cordon” for location – implying exclusivity, a tourist attraction. To attract mouths hungry for natural foods, and to attract minds hungry for enjoying the peace of Mother Nature on any of those hills turned green!
This morning, Tuesday, 04 May 2021, I saw Noime Liangco’s Facebook post dated 29 September 2020 – late but as good as yesterday. Her title intrigues me absolutely: “A Better Future Through Natural And Sustainable Agriculture” – all because I have been writing about sustainable agriculture as well as thinking about the Amancio farm & hotel in Cordon, Isabela. She says, “Amancio Nicolas Farm: A New Name, A New Hope.”
My wife Ampy, our youngest Graciela, and I as family guests visited the Amancio farm & hotel at near the boundary of Cordon, Isabela, on invitation of owner Miss Noime for 4 days in the 3rdweek of June 2018, some 3 years ago. I wrote quite a few essays on the subject that same year right after the visit, the very first being “Noime's Place & The Rich Harvests From The Farm On The Hills[1]” (25 June 2018, A Magazine Called Love): would you believe 30-plus essays? (Will write about them later.)
The lower image above shows some Amancio hills, with the farm hotel in the distance. You can see trees, but too few to call the place “a forest.” Those bare hills are waiting for food plants and forest trees to make them green!
Fast as well as educational solution? First off, I’m thinking now of high school students of nearby Santiago City actually practicing organic gardening on those hills, and getting good grades along with good food – absolutely no chemicals used. The high schoolers will also be planting the trees that serve as nurse plants for their varied vegetables, and pretty soon you have a spread of food & forest there. Sustainable agroforestry, agribusiness-conscious youth.
Even Miss Noime can plant, say, cacao trees and dream of making tablea sold on a table made from wood from a tree in the Amancio forest. She could make history, and money attracting visitors far and wide, from these islands and from around the world.
Yes, there is food in the Amancio Farm, as Ampy and I saw by the side of the freshwater pond, that which Miss Noime stocked with fish, and even wild ampalaya growing elsewhere – but no vegetables growing under the trees or anywhere else. Those bald hills up there are waiting for food crops to grow to make them look greener and make a pilgrim feel healthier just by the sight of fruits up in the air or near the ground.
You earn while you learn. I’m thinking: Those small and big hills and valleys of the Amancio farm are a sight for high schoolers to visit and learn practical forestry and agriculture up there – and earn some honest money to make their thin pockets thicker. Sustainable Amancio Farm – and sustainable high school education!@517
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