Yamang Bukid Farm draws over 254,000 visitors in 2019

Published: January 24, 2020 01:25pm | PUERTO PRINCESA CITY

Yamang Bukid Farm is among the most visited tourism destinations in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, drawing over a quarter of a million guests last year, government data released recently revealed.

At least 254, 449 local and foreign tourists visited the 20-hectare farm tourism destination in Barangay Bacungan in 2019, according to a report Friday by online Palawan News.

Citing data released by the city government, the report said Yamang Bukid Farm placed fourth in the list of the most popular destinations for tourists in tourism-magnet Puerto Princesa.

Topping the list is Baker’s Hill, a privately-run hilltop destination in Sta. Monica village where popular Palawan delicacies and other pasalubong (souvenir) are sold. It attracted some 630, 455 visitors last year.

The UNESCO-heritage site Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park (PPSRNP) came in second with 331, 356 visitors. Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center was third, logging in 272, 881 guests.

Rounding up the top five is Luli Island resort off Honday Bay, drawing at least 144,965 tourists.
Yamang Bukid, a two-year old sprawling farm has been popular among tourists for its well-manicured flower gardens and delicacies such as sumbulo—a saccharine glutinous rice cake cooked in bamboo and flavored with health and wellness herbs—among others.

The Farm has some 300 employees, more than 90 percent of whom are former illegal loggers and tree poachers.

It is also an advocate of sustainable and organic agriculture. Last year, Yamang Bukid Farm, has embarked in a partnership with Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) in teaching modern farming methods and technology to the grassroots in Bacungan and nearby communities.
(JL)

See Next Post

DA exec hails Yamang
Bukid ‘sustainable farming’

  • PUERTO PRINCESA CITY—Officials from the Department of Agriculture have lauded the initiative of Yamang Bukid Farm in promoting sustainable agriculture in transforming an undeveloped upland community here into an emerging agri-tourism destination.

    In her visit to the sprawling farm during its 4th Agros Festival last Feb. 16, DA Undersecretary for administration Evangeline Lavina praised the farm’s effort in enlisting the help of the community in Bacungan in the endeavour by employing illegal loggers as farm workers.

    Lavina said Yamang Bukid Farm’s model should be replicated by other farms elsewhere in the country as it attempted to solve the problem of widespread forest degradation by giving an alternative livelihood to tree poachers thereby turning them away from illegal forest activities.

    With an area covering more than 10 hectares, the farm was a former grassy upland area made productive by villagers through kaingin (slash-and-burn) farming, a highly-destructive method that involves the cutting and burning of a portion of a hill to clear it for farming which scrapes the land of nutrients and induces soil erosion during the rainy season.

    Owned by Baguio City-based Yamang Bukid Healthy Products, maker of such brands as turmeric tea 10-in-1, the Yamang Bukid Farm employs about 200 people, over 90 percent of whom are ex-loggers. They enjoy above-average salaries and wages, free lunches and stipend for their schoolchildren.

    “Yamang Bukid Farm is an ideal model for sustainable agriculture and tourism. Such practice can hugely help the agriculture sector by employing many people while maintaining the balance of nature,” Lavina said during the tour where she was shown the farm’s various amenities and attractions, such as the sunflower garden, herbal medicine nursery, House of Kakanin (delicacies), the then on-going construction of glamorous camping (clamping) tents, among others.

    She witnessed and was entertained how farmers in their blue garb danced “budots” and other modern dance tunes.
View Full Post

Food, Pinoy fun and advocacy for farmers highlight Yamang Bukid’s 5th Agros

  • PUERTO PRINCESA CITY——Delectable food, festive mood and rich upland Filipino version of fun are in store as Yamang Bukid Farm pays tribute to the farmers and their highest sacrifices for the country in Saturday’s 5th Agros Festival.
    The second of such event this year by Palawan’s emerging farm tourism destination, Saturday’s festivities seeks to highlight the role of farmers in nation-building despite various challenges they are currently facing such as plummeting prices of palay.
    Kicking up the day-long festival is a five-kilometer run for a cause dubbed Takbo Para sa mga Magsasaka.

    Photos by JM ZAP

    The charity run that ends at the marker of Yamang Bukid Farm at Purok Candes III is expected to attract at least 1,000 runners whose registration fees will be used to buy palay at higher prices in the farms of Narra town, the province’s rice granary, where farm gate prices of the staple grain have plunged to less than P15/kilo. Farmer-employees of Yamang Bukid Farm will then go gyrating and shaking their calories away in a zumba exercise following the 4 a.m. fun run. before the festival proper goes underway by 9 a.m.

    Drumming up the festival were mall tours and appearances at the Palawan provincial capitol of the Agorot Hunks, an all-male Cordillera performing group known for their good looks.
    Back at the Farm, guests as well as local and foreign tourists will be enthralled by various dance performances of the Farm’s 200-plus workers, most of whom are former illegal loggers.

    There will also be a long table covered with banana fronds where sumptuous Pinoy dishes will be feasted on in a “boodle fight.”

    In the afternoon, it will be all fun as the Farm is flooded with colors from dozens of elaborately-dressed carabaos that, together with their owners, will do the catwalk, errr, the carabao walk for the title of the most beautiful buffalo on the planet. The fun and games continue with authentic Pinoy games such as palosebo, sack race, tug-of-war as well as endurance jousts like tuba-drinking contest.
    (JL)
View Full Post

Hundreds of farmers benefit Yamang Bukid-Tesda agri educ scholarship

  • Yamang Bukid Farm, Palawan’s top farm tourism destinations is spearheading farming education in communities after it has helped realize the dreams of hundreds of scholars who late last December finished agriculture-related short courses.

    In partnership with the government’s Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda), the farm tourism destination in Puerto Princesa City’s Barangay Bacungan was the venue of over a month of instructions on various agriculture-related short courses.

    (Photo by Yamang Bukid)

    The national certificate level II (NC-II) accredited programs included courses on organic fertilizer making (three batches), hog raising (two batches), field budding and grafting (one batch), propagation activities leading to horticulture (one batch), animal production for poultry-chicken (two batches).

    According to Bro. George Maria, Yamang Bukid Farm Palawan vice president for community relations, the scholarships were handed to grassroots-based beneficiaries under the auspices of the office of Palawan 3rd district Rep. Gil “Kabarangay” Acosta Jr.

    Scholar-graduates were also awarded Tesda certification on production of various concoctions leading to agriculture crops production (one batch), plants crops leading to agricultural crops production (one batch) and land preparation for agricultural crops production with three batches.

    (Photos by Yamang Bukid)

    The government, through Tesda, has been pushing for farming education particularly in rural communities in a bid to revitalize the stagnating agricultural sector in the country.

    The more than 20-hectare farm destination, which has been popular for its well-manicured sunflower gardens, became the latest addition of learning sites for sustainable and organic way of farming after it was accredited as such by the Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Training Institute (ATI) as well as a farm school by Tesda early this year.

    (JL)
View Full Post