Aggie graduate finds self-employment financially rewarding

By Sosimo Ma. Pablico

Self employment in agriculture may very well be more financially rewarding than getting a job in an office with a fixed subsistence income that may not even be increased for a long while, especially in government offices.

One could easily observe this on an agriculture graduate, John Agbigay of Batac, Ilocos Norte, who first hopped from one job to another for a while after finishing his degree in agriculture.  After two years he finally decided to quit his job and concentrated on an ornamental nursery that he started when he was still in college.

After 11 years, John’s ornamental nursery – Elan Garden – has become a source of many ornamental plants for landscaping in Northern Luzon, most especially Adeniums or “Bangkok kalachuchi” that he has been breeding himself.  In the recent flower and garden show of the Philippine Orchid Society at the Orchidarium in front of the city hall of Quezon City, John was awarded a special citation for his landscape design.

Now 34 years old, John started to collect ornamental plants from established nurseries when he was still in college. He used part of his allowance to buy plants during field trips related to his courses in horticulture, as he specialized in horticulture. He used these plant collections to start the Elan Garden.

 Even before he went full time into the ornamental nursery and landscaping business, plant enthusiasts in Batac and other Ilocos Norte towns had already started to buy plants from him and were asking for some species that were not in his garden. Everything seemed to have come in the right place when he decided never to become an employee again.

For a start, he registered his garden with the Department of Trade and Industry to comply with existing regulations and give it a legal existence. He began to accept landscaping jobs from the moneyed class – the elite – of Ilocos Norte. The contracts were not really big, but the income derived from them was a great deal much better than the salary of new college graduates. It did not take long before the big contracts came. 

Because he was hiring large vehicles to haul plants from other nurseries and to his landscaping jobs in Ilocos Norte, Cagayan, Ilocos Sur, La Union, and Greater Manila, particularly in Fort Bonifacio, he used part of his income to buy an Elf truck. The vehicle also enables him to participate in plant and garden shows at lower cost.

Lately, John observed that his income from ornamental plants and landscaping has been declining as a result of the competition now posed by his former helpers who have already established their own nurseries after learning the trade from him. 

Thus, he started to think of acquiring some plant species and varieties that he alone in the province and nearby provinces would have. He got acquainted with an ornamental plant importer from whom he obtained four varieties of Adenium with red, white, and miniature flowers. The petal linings of the flowers of the fourth variety have combinations of red and white. These are very much different from the old Adenium variety with pink flowers.

John knew that if he mass produces the new varieties asexually, it would take him a long time to have a thousand new plants and he would miss the handsome price of new plant introductions.  So he thought of pollinating their flowers to produce seeds.  His big constraint, however, was that he had no training on plant breeding. “I had to learn it through trial and error,” he said. 

He was so excited when the first pods were produced because it took him two years to develop his pollination technique.  “It was as if I went through a two-year course on plant breeding   as no one in the university wanted to teach me how to pollinate,” he said.

Although he failed to get seeds from the initial pods, he was able to harvest viable seeds from the succeeding pods, indicating his success.  Since he had only a few mother plants of the new introductions, he decided to graft the upper portion of the seedlings with rooted cuttings of the old pink variety serving as stock. 

John introduced in 2005 the three new Adenium varieties in the market and has already sold no less than 2000 pots.  “The price is handsome and acceptable to plant enthusiasts,” he declared. 

Having already learned how to pollinate and perfect his technique, he started to cross the new introductions. Some buyers want to buy seedlings of the crosses but he would not part with them yet, as he would like to see their flowers first.

From the looks of it, John is determined to pursue his new venture with greater vigor. He has already established a simple yet functional screen house to protect the flowers and pods from continuous rain during the wet season and continue with his pollination work.

He only gave us a handsome smile when we asked him whether he would still get a job or not.

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/harvest-time/)

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