With the lifting of COVID lockdowns and lowering of Alert Levels, many people have expressed keen interest in investing, restarting or upgrading their tourism-related businesses, primarily hotels and resorts. The natural instinct is to expand existing facilities and venues and do all they can to pack in the guests. Why not? It’s been two long years of drought in the industry and now is the chance to make up for it.
But looking back at what has taken place and what is currently going on, I have to say that some people missed the boat of opportunity in terms of building an essential support system for any resort, hotel or restaurant, which is building food production facilities generally categorized as a “farm.” The pandemic period would have been the golden opportunity to build vegetable gardens, orchards, ponds, poultries and small-scale piggeries that are purpose-built to produce the kitchen requirements of the tourist-related facilities and ensure food security.
After I built Club Paradise (now called Discovery Paradise) from 1989 to 1991, the single constant challenge we had was procuring food from the mainland. Being on an island in Northern Palawan made that problem so expensive and, depending on the weather, almost impossible to overcome. During the rainy season, the locals held on to their rice, corn and dry goods like there was a war. On several occasions, we attempted to buy a pig, a cow and a sack of rice just to tide us over until the weather would allow boats to sail once again, but the locals would politely tell us that cash on hand was meaningless if there was nothing to buy and the jeeps and trucks could not cross the mountain. In the worst-case scenario, I have heard of locals boiling bamboo shoots because there was nothing to eat, nothing to buy and nothing to catch at sea during long stretches of the monsoon.
As a consequence, we eventually partnered with a local leader to build a small piggery and some free-range chickens, while I embarked on a floating fish cage for lapu-lapu. It was not easy, not cheap and distracted us from the main business of building and running the resort. I recently interviewed someone regarding sustainable tourism, and I discovered that majority of the resorts, hotels and restaurants in the Philippines have been very slow and small scale in adapting to integrating food production facilities into their design and operations. Most hotels and resorts still rely on commercial operators and suppliers who come from a distance, create a large carbon footprint in terms of travel, packaging and wastage as well as the resulting plastic pollution, etc.
The last time I was in Boracay, I asked around about the extent of vegetable farming or dedicated gardening for the business establishments on the island. The people I spoke with all said that while there are some people and businesses that have made pocket gardens, the idea of incorporating these has not been popular and not promoted by the LGU. I was also told that raising chickens, even free-range chickens, would not be allowed due to zoning restrictions.
Because of this, the businesses have to buy their food supplies from as far as Batangas City if not Metro Manila. They have to crate in tons of packaged and frozen meats etc., all of which create so much garbage. There is ample space and advanced technology as well as established environmentally friendly practices that would allow food production on site. Rule makers, both from Manila as well as local, are simply too absolute in their thinking and not studying options and advantages in terms of boosting the local economy, creating more jobs and keeping the money on the island.
Ironically, several personalities in the tourism industry have been pushing for the promotion of Farm Tourism and day trips to farms as an add-on tourist activity and to augment the income of commercial farmers or boutique style farms that let guests experience the farm ambiance but with the amenities of a resort. Why not just incorporate the construction of such “farms” into mainstream tourist facilities by making it part of the requirements for approval from government? This would ensure the sustainability of a tourist destination, ensure their food security, reduce their operational costs, increase their profitability, prevent demand and supply disruption in local markets and help stabilize food prices.
The last point is especially important for local residents who always end up paying higher prices for food wherever tourism is developed or promoted. The businesses end up competing and out-buying locals for the first choice of food and sometimes create artificial or momentary shortages in local supplies. Another benefit to such a policy is that it prevents regional producers and commercial sukis or consumers from becoming overly dependent on each other and the risk of serious losses or operational disruption in the event of disruption caused by health lockdowns, travel bans due to typhoons or natural disasters, peace and order, etc.
The national government and concerned departments such as the Department of Tourism, Department of Agriculture and Department of Environment and Natural Resources should be looking into these matters and developing long-term policies and immediate action plans. Come to think of it, the idea of building food production centers could also be developed by president-elect and DA secretary Bongbong Marcos as an instrument towards national food security. Instead of the ridiculous and miniscule barangay greening projects, BBM should instruct incoming DILG secretary Benhur Abalos to issue a memorandum to all LGUs to audit all the empty lots and public spaces and temporarily use these as community vegetable gardens. Having local food sources will surely reduce every resident’s food expenses, create a handful of jobs and promote community relations. As the Nike motto says, “Just Do It” and it will happen.
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