The movers and shakers of the country’s booming farm tourism industry will take center stage once more in the third Lakbay Bukid (Farm Tourism) Awards to be given by the International School of Sustainable Tourism on Nov. 7.
A veteran journalist, a Sulu princess, a Negros-based and an Indian agricultural entrepreneur will lead this year’s recipients, which are recognized as the foremost farm tourism pioneers, practitioners and advocates.
Awardees this year are Zac Sarian, Kumala Sug-Elardo, Ramon Peñalosa Jr. and Pandurang Taware, who will be honored at the Marco Polo Plaza in Cebu City and receive a US$1,000 cash prize and a trophy, among other rewards.
Sarian, a former agriculture editor of a national newspaper, is a consummate agriculture journalist whose career and life has been devoted to propagating information on about farming, successful agri-personalities, farm destinations, and agribusiness opportunities. He is a practicing farmer himself, propagating exotic fruit trees and ornamental plants.
Sug-Elardo is a Sulu princess and social worker who founded the People’s Alliance for Progress Multi-Purpose Cooperative to help farmers earn more by introducing processing and standards to coffee bean selection. Its Sulu coffee has developed its own brand in the local market, and in the process, have led to rebels to lay down their guns for farming, establishing peace in Mindanao.
Peñalosa is an accidental agri-preneur who developed Peñalosa Farm, an integrated organic farm in Victorias City, Negros Occidental, which has shown the viability of farm tourism as a fun business model.
Taware is founder of the Agri Tourism Development Corporation in Maharashtra, India, an agriculture tourism model which has proven that farm tourism increases opportunities for livelihood and awareness in environmental and cultural conservation. He is the first foreigner to win the Lakbay Bukid Awards now that it has been expanded across Asia.
The awards night is among the highlights at the 6th Farm Tourism Conference on Nov. 6 to 8, which will have former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Agriculture Secretary William Dar, and Senator Cynthia Villar as keynote speakers.
ISST, the award-giving body, is a private non-stock, non-profit corporation founded in 2010 by former tourism secretary Mina Gabor for the development, promotion, and operation of sustainable tourism in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
Based in Pasay City with a field campus in Cavite, it is described by National Geographic Traveller Magazine global editor Costas Christ as the “first sustainable tourism school in the Asia-Pacific region educating a new generation of leaders.”