Blog #143: "No Unfertile Soil with a Fertile Mind" Arapal Farm

Happy Saturday Hivers!

How are you here in Agricultural Mindset Community? I hope everyone's life is getting better today. I am not sure if this is my first time that I posted my blog here. My apology for I can't remember.

Well, today I'm going to share with you my most recent trip. It was absolutely different from my usual trips that I shared here in Hive. It is all about farming, gardening and composting with worms and some other services that the Arapal Farm offers. So let me share with you what's in the Arapal Farm and how I spent my day there.

Lately, I was obsessed of researching about self-sustainability, organic farming and gardening. I wanted to broaden my knowledge on the mentioned above because I am certain that time would come I will opt to live a self sustainable lifestyle. As I kept browsing on the internet, I came across the Arapal Farm. Luckily, the farm is not that far from where I stay.

I travelled less than an hour from Kawit Medellin to Anunang Sur, Bogo just to visit the place and to learn things about running a farm. It was my first time in the place so I asked the bus collector to drop me off in my destination. As I alighted from the bus, I hired a motorcycle driver to convey me to Arapal Farm.

The Entrance

The main gate is wide and the entrance area is spacious. Parking is not a problem for those who will bring their own vehicle.

Upon entry, I expected that there was a strict health protocol implementation but to my surprise no one asked me to sanitize first before entering the vicinity. Maybe because there was only few guests around and the area is huge that you can barely see people.

I was assisted by one of their staffs there and he was also serve as my tour guide in the farm.

The Goat Farm

We went first to the goat farm since we were near to that area. We hiked around 10 minutes before we got there. Most roads we took was unpaved so I was lucky that the sun was shining brightly that day because the road was not muddy.

As we arrived, the staff showed this to me. This is the belief of the owner from the start he made improvements of this farm. He wrote "No infertile soil with a fertile mind." The land is not abundant of fertile soil. It is full of rocks and it is impossible to grow healthy vegetables there. It is not also good to raise animals because of the water supply issue. The proprietor of this farm is a visionary according to the staff. And he made the impossible things possible.

As they've started to run this farm, they've started to raise few numbers of goat. It was so challenging that time to raise animals in this farm because there was no proper water supply.

In order for them to obtain water for their daily needs they'd travelled every early morning and late in the afternoon to a distant place just to get water.

Because of their patience and perseverance they were able to conquer those most challenging times. And their lives have started to slowly change into better.

The number of goats they have were continuously increasing until such time they were started to earn high profits.

The staff invited me to get inside to have a closer look to a male goats. I was absolutely surprised since that was my first time I saw big goats. I constantly saw small goats in our village but not the big one. He laughed at me when I confessed him about that.

This is where they store the goats' food. Everyday they collected wild grasses in the mountains because they only feed them grasses.

Before we left the area, the staff gave me a brief education why raising goats is also a good investment. They call it the four M's that we can get in goat raising.

Milk ~ According to the staff, a female goat (newly gave birth) can produce more than a liter of milk everyday. You can sell the excess milk if you wanted to earn more money.

Meat ~ The goat's meat is expensive because it is known as the most healthiest meat.

Manure ~ This is a healthy fertilizer. Many farmers will collect or buy goat's manure because they will mix this with soil in order to produce a healthy fertilizer.

Money ~ You can earn money by selling the above mentioned. Or if you wanted to venture another form of business using the goat's milk, you can make a goat's soap or cheese.

In fact, they were also selling goat's soap and cheese. They made it by their own hands. And they display it somewhere in Banilad Cebu during the farmer's market day.

Vermi Culture

My tour guide told me about vermiculture. Although I hate to see worms but I never rejected his offer to visit it. It was an opportunity for me to learn so I grabbed it immediately. If you're not a farmer and you don't know what is vermiculture, my tour guide told me, it is a process of rearing worms. And they reared an African Night Crawler.

Since I can't explain it well (I have only little knowledge about it) why they have to rear worms, maybe the explanation below from the wikipedia will help you understand if you're not a farmer. But if you're a farmer please do understand if I used some wrong terms here because I just started learning.

According to Wikipedia, Vermiculture is the process in which the composting of the garden is done by the usage of worms. All the material which is organic will be undergoing the process of decomposition. But in the vermiculture, the decomposition process increases its rate. The worms present in the system will be consuming the organic material which is undergoing decomposition and then releases them out in the form of waste which is considered as castings. This is also called a worm manure. The casting released by the worm is very rich in nutrients.

Remember that they don't have fertile soil in the farm so they made this type of process for them to produce a good fertilizer for their plants.

I will be sharing with you in my next blog on how they pursue organic gardening in the land with no fertile soil. Stay tuned!

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Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.

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