When Medily S. Villamayor decided to take a break from the corporate life, little did she know that she will be sticking around in her hometown Malaybalay for a while.

Manticao, Misamis Oriental---By our standards, the vastness of five thousand standing posts supporting varieties of dragon fruits was enough to warrant that the said commodity is seen as a lucrative business by the farm owner. On its previous cropping, the farm was teeming with vegetables such as ampalaya, eggplant, string beans, tomatoes, pechay, and okra.

Since retiring on January 1, 2016 as a public teacher, Ellen Acain Rosario embarked a life of productivity in her hometown in Bacolod, Lanao del Norte. Her 40 years of teaching and empowering young minds are now punctuated with more time spent in her established farm Queensland.   

It was a fine Thursday morning when we arrived at the farm of Carlito Cortez in San Fernando, Bukidnon. We were scheduled to interview this young farmer who preferred to work on his farm after securing his college diploma.   

The Filipino farmer is going to be a vanishing breed very soon, and the Philippine government is concerned that this trend could worsen food insecurity with the rising population of consumers to meet current food demand, since the average age of the Filipino farmer is 57.

Considering that the human resource base of the agriculture sector is aging and keeps dwindling through the years, one of the major thrusts of the Department of Agriculture (DA) is the provision of support to young Filipino farmers.

Responding to the country’s agricultural challenges and opportunities, the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) and the Japanese government commit together to work on the Young Filipino Farm Leaders Training Program in Japan (YFFLTPJ).