Growing things for fun and profit after the pandemic
Iwas asked to give a talk on urban farming at the National Center for Mental Health’s Livelihood Ideas for Financial Empowerment program in celebration of Women’s Month. Here’s a condensed version of my speech:
The pandemic showed us that food security is important. We saw how borders were quick to lock down and how, because mass transportation came to a halt, it was suddenly difficult to acquire even the most basic pantry items. And because people suddenly had a lot of time on their hands, farming and gardening became popular. Encouraged by the Department of Agriculture, people began to grow vegetables at home while others turned to gardening to ease the stress of the pandemic. Many realized that they actually had a green thumb. Ornamental plant prices soared. Words were even invented for these newfound plant enthusiasts: plantitos and plantitas.
All of this feels like the distant past, even though it only happened four years ago. Now it seems that people have forgotten about the importance of securing our food as a nation. Folks are so keen to go back to the “old ways” that they have disregarded the lessons that the pandemic tried to teach us: that we cannot survive on imports alone. But for some people, it unlocked an idea: that it can be possible to grow your own food, and maybe make money from it as well.
After interviewing so many farmers, gardeners, and agripreneurs, I’ve come to realize many things that successful agri-business owners have in common.
First, they like what they do. No matter what the field, it’s difficult (but not impossible) to succeed if one is not interested in what one is doing. So if one has idle land and wants to start a business growing vegetables or ornamental plants, they have to like growing vegetables or ornamental plants because it’s what they will be spending a lot of time on.
They work hard. Hands-on business owners will tell you that they work more than their employees, but that they also earn more. And if they’re lucky, they also love what they do. Farming happens to be a venture that needs supervision. There are constant threats of pests, disease, natural disasters, theft, and so on. Farm owners who think they can leave their farm to a random farmhand find out the hard way that this is a big mistake.
They run their farms and gardens like the businesses that they are. It’s a common misconception that the Philippines is so fertile that farming is easy. If this were true, our agriculture industry wouldn’t be the struggling behemoth that it is. If one wants to make money from farming, they have to be prepared to treat it like a business. They have to figure out if there’s going to be a market for what they want to sell, and if there isn’t, they have to figure out if they want to go ahead and sell it anyway (which will involve educating the market) or if they want to switch products.
They are willing to pivot and innovate. Many successful small diversified farms, as their name says, don’t just sell one crop. Neither do they just sell raw materials. Sometimes they make products out of their harvests, which they can sell at a premium and also usually have longer shelf lives. Anyone who’s played a farming game knows that making products from one’s harvests will add to the income of one’s farm.
They are savvy marketers and take advantage of current technology. One of the best money making stories I’ve heard involves just two things: a smartphone and access to a plant store. A plant store owner told me about how a lady would post about plants for sale on her social media account, but she’d post plants from the owner’s store and add a few pesos so she’d earn an income. Once a plant was sold, she’d buy the plant from the owner’s store and ship it to the customer. The store owner didn’t mind this because the lady was upfront about it and at the end of the day, a sale is a sale.
Other farmers use social media to familiarize people with what goes on in their farm, so that clients are invested in the farmer’s journey as well as in the goods that they sell. A young farmer wanted to grow hydroponic lettuce in her province. She did some market research before building a simple hydroponic setup in a small part of her parents’ farmland. She posted about the entire process from the beginning, so that by the time her first harvest arrived, it was sold out. She also made it a point to deliver everything herself to ensure customer satisfaction.
There can be money in farming and gardening, as long as one treats it like a business. But like any business, there’s also a chance of a venture not succeeding. But as long as one is strategic, there’s always a good chance for success.