KOINONIA VENTURES,INC. KOINONIA FARMS & LEISURE ESTATES A PROJECT CONCEPT BRIEF
Prepared by: TEN, INC. Technology Exploration Network, Inc. VICENTE S. CO
TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword (p.1) Introduction (p.2) Project Brief: Koinonia Farms and Leisure Estates (p.3)
Proposed Project Site (p.4) Land Space Allocation (p.4) Preliminary Conclusions and Recommendations (p.5) Project Cost (p.5) Projected Income and Expenses (p.6)
Project Concept and Development Plan: Conceptual Study Site and Vicinity Plan
Organization Of Koinonia Ventures. Inc.
Seed Capital (p.7) Work Agenda (p.7)
Attachments: Researches and Collated References: (p8. - p.13)
The Kibbutz & Moshav of Israel: Pattern and Model For Development Arrowhead Mills: Model for Natural Farming and Food Processing Crowley Sewege Treatment Plant: Model of a Regenerative Design for a Sustainable Development. Edible Landscaping by: Robert Kourik Paterno’s Economic Program Ting Roxas’ ECO-SYSTEM Plan Farmhomes Subdivisions by: Rogelio B. Urbina Environmental Pollution & Economic Growth by: Barry Commoner
Afterword: “QUOTES” (p.14) Alternative Sites: Occidental Mindoro: 420 Hectares with Beach Front
Foreword Introduction
NEW DAY
FOREWORD
…SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT is a concept that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs. Stated more positively, an economically and ecologically sustainable society would pass on to its children a planet whose (God created) life support systems and resource based wealth are as well endowed as those as we received from our ancestors. Sustainability principles aim to guide economic growth and technological progress in a socially equitable and environmentally sound manner, emphasizing appropriate and efficient use of our natural resources and mimicking of nature for our own sustenance, our communities’, our nations and that of the world. Symptoms of unsustainable development, in all fields of present human endeavors are cropping up everywhere. Global warming (Greenhouse effect), Ozone layer hole, Air (smog) and water pollution, Acid rain, toxic waste, famine, drought, disease, bottled water, poverty, fiat money system, government deficit spending, the huge third world debt that can never be repaid and the present financial crisis. John T. Lyle, American Landscape Architect, (Landscape Architecture, 1/94, p.144) wrote: “Our prevailing means of providing food, shelter, energy and waste management have proven unsustainable. They rely heavily on raw materials that cannot be replaced. Nor can their by-products be recycled into natural processes. By nature they deplete, create waste and pollute. And they are expensive. The conventional life support technologies in common use was developed during an industrial era where concrete, steel, chemical and energy derived from fossil fuel were substituted with for natural processes. Sustainability took a back seat to Stability: An illusory goal much sought after by engineers of the industrial period, who tried to achieve it by overwhelming nature with concrete, steel and fossil fuel. They failed disastrously. We should have learned that we have no choice but to depend upon nature’s fundamental processes for our own sustenance. Natural processes are never static. They are always in a flux of death and rebirth, decay and renewal; continuing regeneration. Curiously, most landscape architects rarely view landscape as a PROCESS. Rather they tend to think of landscape as visual from. The reasons are open to debate, though I believe they date back to habits of thought that dates back to the Renaissance. Whatever the roots, the concepts are hopelessly inadequate. We need to design landscapes that are life sustaining and regenerative; whose form express the inherent elegance and complexity of nature’s fundamental processes. So far, very few projects accomplish this. Most, voice only static, engineered order. But providing our most basic life support processes is no longer just a matter of engineering. This has become a challenge. To create a regenerative landscape that gives deep form and cultural meaning to the sustaining processes of the EARTH.” Thus introducing KOINONIA FARM and LEISURE ESTATES, comprehensively designed communities guided by the principles of SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT in all aspects of everyday living. Footnotes: KOINONIA is a Biblical Greek word meaning Community, fellowship, group of individuals caring and sharing resources towards a common beneficial objective for each as for the whole. TEN, INC. (Technology Explorations Networks, Inc.) is the project proponent and presently in charge of the R&D, Design and Planning, Project feasibility Study, initial projects management and implementation.
INTRODUCTION
T
he idea came about more than twenty years ago as just a simple desire to some day own a farm in the countryside to be able to commune with nature and grow one’s own food. Being an Architectural graduate gave me the advantage of being able to plan and design systematically my own concept of what a modern farm should be like. The idea has evolved through the years from bit and pieces of related information and materials here and there taken from books, periodicals, magazines and newspaper. (special mention should also be given to the present availability of the vast amount of information on the World Wide Web at the touch of a finger.) Topics such as Natural and Health Food, The Environmental Crisis, Pollution and Garbage, Energy Crisis and Alternative Sources of Energy, Organic Architectural, and the Christian Ethics in today’s Business World plus personal experiences such as the Christian Born Again, Edsa Revolution and the everyday for survival Rat Race of the World’s Market Oriented Economy has all contributed to a Project that has taken all these aspects into consideration. Though by no means does the project imply to have the perfect solution to all these concerns but I do strongly believe, the approach are steps forward in the right direction. The project itself is not really unique, it cannot even be called pioneering because countless people over the years has explored, tested or experimented and some may even have perfected any one of the various component parts that are needed and maybe used for the project. It is just a matter of gathering and choosing the best of the various possible choices and integrate them into the project and keep on with the R&D of these components parts to better the process or system to produce the service or product that can best serve man and his environment. Lastly the Project is not only a Dream but has become a Vision when 15 years ago, during a 7 day prayer and fasting at a private beach resort in Batangas (near the project site). A Blessing and Assurance was given on the success of the Project through a passage in the Holy Scripture;
“The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruits, the ground will produce its crops and the Heavens will drop its dew.” Zechariah 8:12
PROJECT BRIEF Koinonia farms and leisure estates Proposed project site Land space allocation Preliminary conclusions and recommendations Project cost Projected income and expenses
POSSIBILITIES
KOINONIA FARMS AND LEISURE ESTATES
A PROJECT BRIEF A WHOLE SYSTEM APPROACH TO THE DESIGN AND PLANNING OF LAND UTILIZATION.
T
hese are fully integrated Farm Estates founded on a No Waste, No Pollution, Ecologically Sound and Balanced Environment Objective. The individually owned Farm Estates together with the collective Farm areas that will form the entire community will virtually be functioning as a Mini Eco System. This will be a community that is SELF-SUFFICIENT in its basic food and energy requirements through a well planned and detailed land use approach that will produce most of the nutritional and dietary requirements of its populace through natural and organic farming methods integrated with livestock, poultry, fish and prawn ponds and with the efficient utilization of the natural cycles of the land’s energy and physical resources to produce Solar power from the Sun (passive and active Solar Energy systems will be incorporated into the design of all housing units), Wind power, mini-Hydro power from the catch basin fish and prawn ponds, Fertilizers and Biomass fuel form the biodegradable waste of the community. A community where the enlightenment rich, the educated middle class professionals and industrious underprivileged live, work and manage collectively the entire Estate in an environment of cooperation, respect and mutual assistance. Together enjoying the natural bounties of nature and fruits of the land, through their combined resources and endeavors. A unique investment experience wherein the Spiritual, Social, Economic, Ecological, Political and Aesthetic considerations with their weighted values are all computed into the return on investment without having to sacrifice one for the other. A perpetually dynamic, progressive, exploring, teaching and learning community that appreciates the uniqueness, relevance and worth of each individual in our shared humanity and in relation to our environment, acknowledges the interdependence of all things to one another through a training center established around an adequately funded R&D Program utilizing state of the art information technology and lab facilities.
And above all, a CHRIST centered community and open to all believers. The organizational structure of the Farm Estates are to be patterned and modified after the Kibbutz and Moshavim system of Israel integrating their adaptable points into a modern day corporation entity, Koinonia Ventures, Inc. (KVI). All Farm Estates owners automatically become a shareholder of KVI.
PROPOSED PROJECT SITE
Location:
Tuy, Batangas alongside the slopes of Mt. Batulao 86 kms. from Manila 25 kms. from Tagaytay Taal Vista Lodge 40 kms. from Nasugbu Matabungkay beaches
Description: 380 hectares of rolling terrain with the cool and pleasant atmosphere of Tagaytay fame. The property is bounded on one entire side by the Palico and Mulawin Rivers. Half of the property is seasonally planted to sugar cain and the other portion was formerly used as cattle grazing land. Soil condition is sandy loam and several water spring are found inside the property.
Lowest elevationL 130 meters above sea level Highest elevation: 665 meters above sea level It over looks the South China Sea at an elevation of about 400 meters to the west and at about an elevation of 620 meters, a partial view of Lake Taal to the east. Its highest elevation is shorter only by about 20 meters to the peak of Mt. Batulao
Property Owner: Rosario Fernandez Padua Property is sub-divided into nine (9) titles which are and has all the basic governmental clearances such as DAR exemption. The land already been declared as a tourism and commercial zone by the Sanguniang Bayan of Tuy and ratified by the Sangguniang Panglalawigan of Batangas. It has been classified as commercial by the Provincial Assessor. The property is expandable to 1,400 hectares should the need arise. Access Road: It has a frontage of Fifty (50) meters width from the main Provincial Highway of Nasugbu and about 400 meters to the property site which includes the crossing of the Palico River of about 100 meters width. Presently the site could be reached through three (3) Barangay Roads. Asking Price: Three Hundred (P300.00) Pesos per square meter or P1.4B
LAND SPACE ALLOCATION
Total Area: 380 hectares Whole Project is subdivided into SEVEN (7) Phases consisting of the following land space allocation for each phase:
Individual Farm Estates: Category A - 350 units @ 2,000 sqm. lots Or (700 units @ 1,000 sqm. lots) Category B – 350 units @ 700 sqm. lots Category C – 350 units @ 300 sqm. lots
70.0 hectares 24.5 hectares 10.5 hectares
Collective Farming Area 175.0 hectares Catch Basin Fish and Prawn Ponds 12.0 hectares Roads, Alleys and Pathways 38.0 hectares Community, Sports & Entertainment R&D Experimental Station, Seedling Farm Center And Training Center (school) 25.0 hectares Total Area
380.0 hectares
Category A – 50 units @ with 2,000 sqm. lots – 10.0 hectares Or (100 units @ with 1,000 sqm. lots) Category B – 50 units @ with 700 sqm. lots – 3.5 hectares Category C -- 50 units @ with 300 sqm. lots - 1.5 hectares Collective Farm Area - 25.0 hectares Catch Basin Fish and Prawn Pond - 1.25 hectares
Total Area (approximately)-
41.25 hectares per Phase
PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
This brief report presents a plan for the development of a 380 hectare property situated on the western slopes of Mt. Batulao in Ba-
tangas Province into a SELF SUFFICIENT Farming Community integrated with all possible modern day amenities. The community would be composed of seven (7) clusters and each clusters made up of around 150 to 200 families, each family owning a farm estate of varying sizes. Each cluster would include 50 farm estates where at least one family member works for the Community. On these individually owned farm estates will be salad gardens designed into the landscape that will grow the fruits, vegetables, legumes, herbs, spices and flowers that are ordinarily needed in a household daily. Several prototypes of residential houses will be available for the selection of community members designed to include natural power generating systems such as solar and wind power. Waste recycling that will produce compost for the plants, feeds for the aquatic ponds and fuel gas for cooking will also be incorporated into the system called ‘Bio-shelter’. Grey water will be preserved to water community planting. Collective farm areas will be used to grow rice and other grains, while orchards will be planted to a variety of fruits suitable to the soil and climatic condition of the area. A dairy farm will also be set up to produce the dairy requirements of the community. One water catch basin per cluster will be places to contain surface are water runoffs and will be used as a pond to produce edible aquatic species of prawns, fish and possibly crabs. Open range poultry production will also be done. The primary objective of all these farms production activities is for the consumption and needs of the community. Surplus harvested produce could either be stored, sold or processed for longer storage life then stored or sold in the open market. And for this purpose, a community store located in the community center will be organized to collect and harvest, process and store all community produce. Individual farm estates will be credited in monetary value for all produce collected from their estate. A waterworks section will be organized to provide potable water for community members as well as all planting from all available water sources within the community that would include the several mountain springs, rain water impounding and waste water recycling. It is proposed that Koinonia Ventures, Inc. be created to implement the plan. KVI will initially be composed of the land owner, project proponents and financiers of the project and would eventually include other share holders as they buy shares for admission into the community.
PROJECT COST
Total investment costs are estimated at P2.025 B or Approximately US $40 M equivalent.These costs are exclusive of physical and price contingencies and are broken down as follows:
Land (@ideal acquisition cost of P200/sqm.) Access road, bridge and main entry statement
Land improvements
P 760 M
50 M
380 M
75 M
R&D Experimental station, Plant Nursery/ Seeding Farm, Dairy Farm & Training Center
Community Center
Administrative, Security, E-Communications and Reception Center Roads, Trails and Passageways
250 M 25 M 200 M
Sports and Recreational (Indoor & Outdoor) Facilities
120 M
Planetary and Sky Observatory Tower
30 M
Perimeter Fencing and Slope Protection
Energy Generating Center (Wind Turbines & Solar Panels)
Total
35 M 100 M -----------------------------
P 2.025 B
PROJECTED INCOME
The initial project income will come from primarily two sources. One would be the sale of KVI proprietary shares which entitles holders to the purchase of farm estates to a maximum of two per unit of share held and for of varying sizes as follows 1. 1,500 units of proprietary shares @ P500 Th
P 750 M
2. Individual Farm Estates;
A. Category “A” 700 estates @ 1,000 sqm. @ P4,000 per sqm. Or @ P 4M B. Category “B” 350 estates @ 750 sqm. @P4,000 per sqm. Or @ P2.8M
2,800 M 980 M
C. Category “C” 350 estates @ 300 sqm. @P2,000 per sqm. Or @ P600 Th (This category is not included in the total due to its being price subsidized and payment term stretched for 25 years at minimal Interests for the benefit of the Residential Community Workers). Total Projected Income within 3 years P 4.53B (Excludes income from category “C”, Housing and Estate Produce) 2.025 B
ORGANIZATION OF KOINONIA VENTURE, INC. Seed Capital Work Agenda
FUTURE
ORGANIZATION OF KOINONIA VENTURE INC.
SEED CAPITAL: P10 M Fund to be utilized for mobilization and integration of all the various project component parts for implementation. I. Organization of all technical and manpower compliment that within a period of 6 to 12 Months will undertake and accomplish the following: 1. Finalize a detail land use study and assemble all data gathered into a comprehensive and systematic guide for the project. 2. Finalize acquisition of project site. 3. Finalize the design and development plans of the project for presentation and implementation to include scale and actual working models. 4. Set up administrative office and project monitoring system 5. Comply with all the registration and documentary requirements with all Government agencies concerned and finalize all necessary legal documents for The project. 6. Formulation of guidelines for personnel selection and set up a training program For human resource development. 7. Organise the R&D program with its corresponding infrastructure and facilities Such as data bank, library, laboratory, greenhouse and experimental station on Site. 8. Start program for the establishment of a seed bank and plant nursery that will be Able to supply all of the plant requirement of the project. 9. Package all data into a comprehensive brief or as an investment portfolio to be Used as a marketing tool for presentation to a highly perspective clients and Investors. 10. Start process for selections of contractors for all projects modules and initial site Preparation works. II. Initial project facilities, equipments and material acquisition: Office space for administrative, marketing and planning functions. R&D facilities and data bank equipment. Transport equipment. Facilities for a seed bank Equipment and material for actual working model.
The Kibbutz & Moshav of Israel: Pattern and Model For Development Arrowhead Mills Crowley Sewege Treatment PlantEdible Landscaping by: Robert Kourik Paterno’s Economic Program Ting Roxas’ ECO-SYSTEM Plan Farmhomes Subdivisions by: Rogelio B. Urbina Environmental Pollution & Economic Growth by: Barry Commoner
Researches and Collated References:
OLD IN THE NEW
THE KIBBUTZ AND MOSHAV OF ISRAEL
Patterns and Model for Development The Kibbutz
Kibbutz means group in Hebrew, It is a modest name for something unique: a voluntary democratic community where people and work together on a non competitive basis. Its aim is to generate an economically and socially independent society founded on principles of communal ownership of property, social justice and equality.
Working and land was an ideology as much as a livelihood to its founders. Thus field, crops, poultry raising, orchards and dairy farming became the basic enterprises of the Kibbutz economy, with every member doing his/her share of the planting, harvesting, animal care and related work. As automation was introduced and modern research applied Kibbutz agriculture reach a very international standard. In recent years, due to the limited availability of land and water in Israel, most Kibbutzim have found it necessary to branch out into industry to supplement their agricultural pursuit, both increasing their productivity and providing challenging work for the community. Today, Kibbutz factories manufacture a wide variety of products from electronics, furniture, household appliances and plastics to farm machineries and irrigation systems. In many areas, Kibbutzim have pooled their resources, establishing regional agriculture related enterprises which own and operate cotton gins, cotton seed oil plants, food processing and poultry packing facilities. Members’ homes are usually grouped together in a garden setting at the center of the Kibbutz grounds, while farm buildings, factories and fields are situated in the surrounding areas. Within the Kibbutz, people either walk or ride bicycles, while electric carts are provided for disabled persons. No money is exchanged on the Kibbutz itself. The basics – food, housing, standard furnishing, education, healthcare, work clothes, etc. are available to all members of the community on an equal basis. Most Kibbutz members work in some section of the Kibbutz economy – orchard, factory, dairy, fish ponds, or in one if its maintenance units. Salaries are deposited into the common treausury.
THE KIBBUTZ AND MOSHAV OF ISRAEL
The Moshav
Just like the Kibbutz, the Moshav is a cooperative rural settlement and started out as agriculturally based communities. But unlike the Kibbutz, whose membership is on an individual basis, the Moshav membership is on a family basis. Each family maintains its own household, farm its own allocation of land and earn its income form what it produced. Only matters of joint concern are handled cooperatively. Economic enterprises are communally operated. Mutual aid is one of the principles of the Moshav, with each member assuming responsibility for the well being of all. The community mobilizes to help with the workload of its members, when the need arises. It also takes are of its parent generation, providing a full life within the family and the community. The Moshav have contributed significantly to Israel’s development by settling and cultivating large areas of previously barren land, and integrating many thousands of immigrants from a wide range of background into a new way of life. The Moshav model, allows for individual enterprise within a cooperative framework. Marketing and purchasing are dealt with collectively, Production income accrues to the cooperative, which credits each family with its share according to what it produced. Each family farmstead can only be passed on to one married child. As research have developed methods of agricultural suitable to family farming. The early tradition of mix farming has been replaced by specialized agricultural, which has introduced new export crops such as flowers and out of season vegetables and fruits. National economic and agricultural planning determines what is farmed and where. Israel’s Moshavim produce almost half of the country’s food output and 50% of its farm export yet it comprises only a mere 3.7% of Israel’s 4.3 million inhabitants. As the number of people required for agricultural production decreases with technical innovation, many Moshavim are increasingly turning to industry, with cooperatively owned factories and plants located in or near the village. The Kibbutz membership which represents only about 2.7% of Israel’s population and the Moshav to my mind make up the backbone of what today is the Israel nation and is one of the very reason how it has withstood all the trouble and dangers it has had face on its road to nationhood and progress in the 20th century just pass and now going beyond into the new millennium.
ARROWHEAD MILLS
The model for Natural Farming and Food Processing The Story
Frank Ford a wheat farmer, is its founder, had been the kind of farmer who felt himself to be a partner with his land rather than its master. The kind who helped his land to perform its natural tasks in a natural way instead of exploiting it unnaturally. Out of deep respect for natural things came also the knowledge that whole wheat flour is far superior in nutrition and taste to other flour commonly used, so in 1960 Arrowhead Mills was begun in an old rail car and small milling building at Herford, Texas. A few used grain bins served as storage. In an old pick up and trailer, he delivered flour and corn meal ground with a 30 inch stone grinder. It was seven years before the little enterprise broke even financially. Now the whole food company, Arrowhead Mills, is a multi-million dollar food business operating out of a 20 hectare acre complex recognized as one of the world’s best facilities for storing cleaning, processing, milling, packaging and distributing whole grain products. Frank had the good sense to know that his food products would have a head start on nutrition if they were grown on home ground with the exceptional fertility of its soil and healthful quality of its water create a uniquely healthy combination for growing food for mankind. What nature gives, Arrowhead Mills likes to leave alone. Following this philosophy, it grows and used food products organically grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Compost is regularly applied to the soil for enrichment and insecet allies of mankind, are used to control those insects that would destroy crops. “We treat food with respect, not chemical.” “Arrowhead Mills is owned and controlled by the people who-work here. We believe in each other. We believe we have the responsibility to produce, store, clean and package the very best grains, beans and seeds in the land.” It now uses the most advanced processing technology that can insure food storage life up to 15 years. Producing the best variety, most nutritious, good and wholesome food by allowing nature to do its best for man.
CROWLEY SEWEGE TREATMENT PLANT
Model of a Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development (P.144, Landscape Architecture, 1/94)
Mayor Robert Estre of Crowley, Louisiana was skeptical to a proposal of an engineering firm for a complete overhaul at a substan-
tial cost for Crowley’s aging mechanical sewerage treatment plant. He thought about the mechanical complexities of the plant and its frequent malfunctions. He also recalled watching water flowing through swamps where he had fished since he was a boy. The water moving into a dark tangle of swamp vegetation often looked dark and soupy and sometimes pungent. The water flowing out of the other side was usually sparkling clear. Underlying the tranquility of the swamp, Estre perceived a fundamental process of regeneration. The swamp seemed to be performing like a sewerage-treatment plant, without the steel and concrete.
He thought there might be some practical application to all this, started asking around eventually found Bill Wolverton of Picayune, Mississippi. A former NASA scientist, Wolverton had designed sewage-treatment systems that took advantage of the natural water processing abilities of plants and micro-organisms. Such systems were up and running in several towns in Louisiana and Mississippi. Ester and Wolverton then began working on a natural system for Crowley with engineers Charles Mader-Miers Engineering. The facility they devised opened in 1992. The cost of building it from scratch was about the same as the projected cost of renovating the old plant, but the similarities end there. Crowley’s new treatment plant is a landscape, not a machine. It is not a beautiful or evocative landscape. It has a rigid engineered order. Yer it is very much alive. There is a great deal of water in view, with plants growing in it and around it’s edges, and masses of tree in the background. In place of steel and concrete, the plants, soil, water and the communities of micro-organism that inhabit them do all the work. The sequence is simple, though it takes time. Following the preliminary screening, about 2.5 million gallons of sewage flow each day into an oxidation pond which covers more than half of the plant’s 178 acres. After spending at lest seven weeks in the pond, the water moves into marshes and ponds filled with aquatic plants like giant bubrush, duckweed and torpedo grass. These plants support micro-organism that breakdown the materials suspended and dissolved in the sewage water. After the water is disinfected with ultra-violet ray radiation, it is ready to be discharged into the bayou. This chain of events amounts to an organized, concentrated version of swamp processes. Water emerges relatively pure and ready to be used again by humans or nature. But that is only part of the story. The plants and micro-organism have assimilated the waste materials in the water as nutrients feeding their own biomass. This the very essence of Sustainability. The process does not depend upon non-renewable resources. As in a natural swamp, sewage becomes a component of nature’s continuing cycles. The terms “waste” and “pollution” have little meaning in this context.
EDIBLE LANDSCAPING
By: Robert Kourik, Author – Your Edible Landscape Naturally.
The traditional ornamental landscape combines colours, textures, smells and sounds but usually neglects flavours. An Edible Landscape can stimulate all the senses, it can be ornamented and tasty, colorful and useful – fragrant day lilies for the flower border that can be used in salads or stuffed with herb cheeses, a colorful ground cover of variegated gold and green thyme for soup and casseroles, a soft herbal sitting bench planted with chamomile that can be harvested for tea, a cool, relaxing, arbor laden with fruits of grape and kiwi vines – the possibilities are endless. There are hundreds of examples of food plants that add colour to your landscape. Its time for the prejudice against edibles as ornamentals to wither and be replaced by the respect they deserve as landscape plants. Home grown produce taste best. There is no question. If you want health and real flavour, you have to grow your own. Surround your home with a productive landscape, it is a convention way to grow vegetables, berries, herbs, fruits, nuts, and ornamental plants in attractive and harmonious groupings, without the use of dangerous chemicals. As you nurture your edible landscape, it will sustain you and your family with benefits that go far beyond good food. It adds value to your property and improve your family’s balance of payments as well as the nation’s. Though food is basic, it has become just another service. Shopping at a supermarket or even at a farmers’ market, the buyer is dependent upon the limitations of modern agriculture. These produce is more often mediocre-bland and travel worn. The cost is high – huge amount of energy, mainly from irreplaceable fossil fuel, are used to ship our produce not to mention to grow it. By the time food gets to the table, its calories are dwarfed by the energy that was burned to process and deliver it. Most the food we eat are black holes for energy not to mention some of the unhealthy methods of growing and processing these foods. Growing as much of your won food as possible without chemicals is the one sure way to protect your family’s health, but don’t stop with the vegetables and fruits, use safe non-toxic methods for your entire landscape. There are 3,000 to 10,000 edible plants in the world but the National Academy of Science estimated that only about 150 edible plants have had any large scale commercial use worldwide. Worse, the diet of the world’s people consist of only about 20 basic foods. The report cautions, “These plants are the main bulkward between mankind and starvation. It is a very small bastion.” Gazing from my desk out of the window, I count over 60 types of vegetables, fruits and nuts growing in my newest edible landscape. By next year, the varieties it offers me will have doubled. That’s my kind of landscape - one I can count on to provide me with plentiful, natural and healthy food.
CROWLEY SEWEGE TREATMENT PLANT (9/4/47)
Senator Vicente T. Paterno called on the nation’s policy makers to stop clinging to the idea of free trade and instead embrace a production program aimed at a both regioinal and national self-sufficiency.
In a privilege speech before the Senate, Paterno pointed out that while many nations profess to preach free trade, few, if any, actually practice it. Paterno pointed out however, that while production should be aimed at turning out all the country’s basic needs, this quest for self sufficiency should be tempered with concern for the Filipino consumer. He explained that Filipino Consumer should not be made to pay a high price to support manufacture of products not absolutely necessary for national survival. Advocating regional self-sufficiency as a principle in planning, Paterno urged that economic development program for each region should be geared to produce most of the region’s own needs for food, raw materials and manufactured products. “We cannot base our economic future on exports with the persistent threat of protectionism shutting our products out of foreign markets. We cannot compromise our people’s welfare on always being able to import products vital to survival, knowing that embargoes have been imposed in recent economic history by some nations on the other nations – on spare parts, crude oil, wheat, soybeans etc. “The nation should aim at producing all our basic needs so that our future cannot ever be taken hostage to obtain those needs. We must grow our own food, produce our needs for basic medicines, clothing, shelter….” Paterno surmised that while Filipino politicians and businessmen criticize industrial nations for making their former colonies suppliers of raw materials and buyers of finished products, “our provinces bear smaller colonial relationship to Metro Manila, and to a lesser extent Cebu.”
TING’S ECOSYSTEM PLAN
Sixto K. Roxas III, white hair genius expounded on the causes of poverty in thePhilippines. Contrary to what Americans adviser say – that ours is an agricultural country with large areas of arable lands suited for plantation farming – the Philippines is land poor, with a population density of 483 persons per square mile as against Australia’s 5.4, USA’s 66, China’s 284, Japan’s 833, Korea’s 1,094, Taiwan’s 1096. The Philippine farmer’s income per hectare is P3,587; in Japan it is P180,000; in South Korea, P128,000; in Taiwan, P108,000; in China, P50,000. The Filipino is poor because he uses land as if he lives in land rich countries like Australia and the USA where large plantations abound. He must realize that he should use this land for intensive farming like the land poor countries of Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. One hectare of land which in 1970 supported 3 persons now had to support 5. The bottom 20% of our population contributed 2% of the total income in 1985; 90% of our farmers are below the poverty line. Percentage utilization of labor is 7% for corn lands; 10% for coconut; 14% for sugarcane; and 42% for palay. Ting Roxas is appalled at the inefficiency of land use in exported oriented agricultural like coconut which employs 25% of the households, 35% of the agricultural lands, and contributes only 3.6% of the total GNP. Here land productivity is only P1,600 per hectare. In order to raise the coconut household above the poverty line, we have to increase exports to five times current levels! But historically export demand has been decreasing. Economic development supported by the Americans and the Wold Bank according to Ting has been oriented to sectoral development by large firms and large plantations, by which farmers earn marginal incomes. For instance in Guimaras Islands where Atlas Fertiliser has a mango project, farmers are displaced from their lands and a few of then are given work in the plantation and processing plant. Ting suggest that as an alternative, an ecosystem development based on domestic production for domestic consumption where the land is intensively cultivated for intercropping and crop rotation, supplemented by the raising of domestic animals. For instance, the coconut farm of 3 hectares can also produce 160 heads of chicken broiler, and okra, tomatoes, corn, cassava and cow peas that can raise family income to P30,000 a year. In addition, 160 of these farms can give rise to an integrated coconut feed and oil production plant processing 1,280,000 coconuts per year and providing for 100 persons an income of P25,000 a year. A capital of P6 M can generate P8.85 M in a year. An internal rate of return of 92% per annum; and provide feeds for the livestock industry.
FARMHOMES SUBDIVISION
By: Rogelio B. Urbina (1/6/91) Decision to open a new real estate projects depend on potential market absorption. Marketability in turn is dependent on effective demand; effective demand is influenced by affordability; affordability is dictated by the health of the nation’s economy. In the face of the bleak economic forecast which is expected to cause a diminution of family income, constriction of demand, and slackening of market response, real estate developers are expected to either postpone the opening of new projects or shift development preferences. The threat of a shooting war erupted in the Middle East has cause many Metro Manilans to worry over the fact they do not have any rural properties where they can retreat and survive through farming of both the perennial and seasonal crops., livestock and poultry raising, inland and off shore fishing, in case business and employment opportunities in Metro Manila deteriorate to alarming aggravation, which may cause their dislocation. The aforementioned apprehension, whether justified or not, should be a signal for real estate developers to consider channeling their resources from affluent – oriented projects to subsistence generating projects. An example of the latter is the concept Farm Homes Subdivision. Paradise farms in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan pioneered this concept in 1953. The Farm Home Subdivision concept would be palatable under present economic conditions because of the following seasons:
1.Rural hectarage and development cost are very much cheaper and thereby accommodate affordability on the part of the buyer.
2. It will answer the needs of urbanites for a retreat for livelihood in case economic conditions in Metro Manila deteriorate to such a condition as would cause a “rat race” competition for survival.
3. It offers a therapeutic escape from the hard and grueling pace of urban living and afford an opportunity to realize one’s vocation for weekend farming.
4. Lot acquisition could be a self liquidating project because installment payments may be financed from the produce of the land itself.
In lieu of the usual open space for parks and recreation required in traditional subdivisions, the Farm Homes subdivision may well provide for a site which can be used as plant nurseries, community warehouse or experimental stations.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLUTION & ECONOMIC GROWTH
BARRY COMMONER Ecologist & a Pioneer of American’s Environment Movement To really clean up the environment, we have to introduce the social interest in environmental quality into the decision making that governs production technology. So we now have to confront the clash between our economic ideology, which is capitalism and the new idea that social interest in environmental quality must now intrude into this private domain. In our present economic system, that decision process is entirely under private control. A Corporation’s legal obligation is not to the nation but it’s stockholders. It’s important to understand that private profit is essential. Otherwise were would you get the resources to expand the economic system? It’s simply a question of whether profit maximization that is, increasing the profit at all cost-is to be regarded as the sole criterion for making fundamental changes in the means of production. There’s a clash between our economic ideology and the environment situation, the housing situation, and the totally inadequate medical care system. Our educational system is in bad shape. Everywhere poverty is getting worse. What’s wrong? There’s a clash between these ideology, one says that the way in which an economy develops is by private corporations deciding how to maximize profits (legal accumulation of wealth), and what we expect our economy to be – a marvelously system in which everybody prospers. Energy conservation is essential but its not sufficient. It’s a control-not a prevention strategy and is (ultimately) inimical to economic development. The Earth’s resource are finite; but with enough energy available they can be recycled and reused indefinitely. And the energy needed is available. The Earth is an open thermodynamic system with enormous amounts of energy pouring in from the sun everyday. If only 10% of the solar energy (which by the way is free) falling on the land could be captured, it would still be possible to expand our present rate of energy use perhaps a hundred folds before encountering the theoretical limit of growth. Economic development based on sound ecological technologies is possible. The issue we face then, is not how to facilitate environmental quality by limiting economic development but how to create a system of production that can grow and develop in harmony with the environment. There are ways of doing that without razing rain forests or damaging the ecosystem at this time, because there is an awful lot of SOLAR ENERGY we are not using. There’s no reason why you have to have air pollution in the city. You can get rid of every fossil fuel burning device in the city. The issue then becomes this generic one of social governance. This is the wrong time in history to say it can’t be done. If Eastern Europe can accept democratic reforms, if Russia can talk about free markets, why can’t we talk about social governance of the means of production. This is our chance; the situation is ripe. The ecologically sound technologies (do indeed) exist.
AFTERWORD “QUOTES”
TIMELESS
AFTERWORD “QUOTES”
“Some people see things as they are and ask, why? I see things that never were and say, why not?” Robert F. Kennedy (from George Bernard Shaw)
“… I think that we live in a un unbelievable GARDEN OF EDEN. Surrounded by miraculous life forms almost without number. Kept alive by a mysterious inter woven, self-replenishing support system that, with all our scientific ‘breakthroughs,’ we still do not understand.” “And yet, as favored as we are by all these real wealth, we somehow perversely prefer to spend almost all our waking hours interpreting the sum total of this reality in terms of the narrow and distorted, strictly human-centered concept of MONEY.” John Shuttleworth (founder, Mother Earth News)
“If there are disruptions in the production of food, urban Europeans will have no change whatsoever to know how to find food and water because they are so dependent on structures they cannot control. Europeans are actually much worst off than people from the Southern Nations. “And: “In the South, the current model of growth leads to famine. In the North it leads to overconsumption…” Gunnar Album, Norwegian Activist
“Western industrialism is unstoppable. There is going to be a major population crash. The global economies and national economies will collapse, I think within 20 to 30 years. That is my guess. We are in the economic survival mode right now and a lot of people at the community level know this. (and) They are trying to become locally self-sufficient because they know that when the crisis occurs and the global and national economies collapse, things are going to get very rough and the best hope for survival is to have a local economy that is as self-sufficient as possible.” Mark Wareing, Director – Western Canada Wilderness Committee
Vicente S. Co
Address: #15 Nike Drive, Serra Monte Villas, Capitol Hills,Q.C., Philippines 1126 Telephone: (063)02-430-1909 Cellphone: 0926-624-0617 Email: vsco21645@yahoo.com
Born: February 16, 1945 Place of Birth: Gattaran, Cagayan Nationality: Filipino Civil Status: Married with 5 children Languages spoken: English Chinese (Fookien) Filipino (Tagalog, Ilocano
Educational Attainment: Prep and Primary: Grace Christian Elementary School 1951-1958 High School: San Beda High School: 1958-1962 College: UST: B.S. Architecture: 1962-1966 Post Graduate: Business Seminars: De La Salle: 1966 MBA (non-degree): Ateneo: 1967
PRINCIPAL PROPONENT