5 Fun Farm Trips your Family will Love

Summer is all about freedom, fun, and the great outdoors – and what better way to capture the spirit of all these three than by making a trip to a real, honest-to-goodness, all-natural, fresh-air farm? Feel the soil on your feet and the wind in your face. Get up close and personal with the animals and plants. Learn a thing or two about the most modern, efficient, and Earth-friendly agricultural techniques. And after your tour, indulge in a delicious meal made with fresh farm-grown ingredients, harvested and prepared right from the same farm.

It’s probably one of the best and most educational field trips your child could ever experience, and you don’t even need to wait for school to start! So are you raring to go visit a farm this weekend? Here are some good places to check out:

1. Gourmet Farms in Cavite

Not far from Metro Manila, and very close to Tagaytay, you’ll find Gourmet Farms, one of the first organic vegetable farms ever established in the country. Although it was started from a mere 2-hectare piece of land, Gourmet Farm now covers a sprawling 11.5-hectare area, so you’ll definitely not run out of things to see.

The farm is laden with different kinds of lettuce, local veggies such as okra and sayote, and culinary herbs such as rosemary, thyme, tarragon, coriander, parsley, and dill. All of these are cultivated without the use of commercial fertilizers or pesticides. Instead, the farm encourages the proliferation of carnivorous insects such as praying mantises and lady bugs, which eat the insects that are harmful to the plants. For fertilizer, they get chicken manure from a nearby poultry farm.

If you want to learn more about their organic farming methods, the farm staff will gladly fill you in on the details. For ₱100, you can get a tour all around the organic farm and greenhouse, see how the vegetables are grown and harvested, and get a refreshing glass of herbal iced tea. You and your kids can also get a mini-seminar on how to make rich compost using edible wastes, as well as a lecture on recycling management, or how to make new and useful things out of used materials.

For an additional ₱50 per module, you can also get lessons on herb planting, harvesting, drying, and cooking (you will bring home the herb you plant); lettuce harvesting (you can take some of the lettuce home); and salad making (they’ll show you how to make the salad and the dressing, and you get to eat it).

After your trip, you can visit the Gourmet Café right on the farm, to feast on excellent organic teas, brewed coffee, salads, sandwiches, pizza, pasta, and refreshing fruit and herb blends, all made from the farm’s own produce.

To learn more about Gourmet Farm at Km. 52, Aguinaldo Highway, Buho, Silang, Cavite, you can call their Manila office at (02) 843-8311, or their Cavite office at (046) 414-1049, or visit their website, www.gourmet.com.ph.

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2. Costales Nature Farms in Laguna

If you feel like travelling further from the metro, you can visit Costales Nature Farms, another organic farm, but this one has accommodations available for overnight tourists: a spacious, comfortable, breezy native hut, to give you that authentic farm experience.

This 5-hectare farm is located at the food of Mt. Banahaw, in Brgy. Gagalot, Majayjay, Laguna. It is just five minutes away from the beautiful Imelda Falls, so you can actually visit three tourist spots in one trip.

At the farm, you’ll find native huts, an organic tilapia pond, a free-range chicken farm, a duck farm, a modern organic odorless pig farm, open space for picnics, and a spa. For ₱150 per person, you and your kids can enjoy a two-hour tour of the farm, a PowerPoint presentation on how to do organic farming, and a delicious organic snack.

If you wish to stay the whole day, ₱1,170 per head will avail you of a farm tour, the organic farming lecture, lunch with unlimited servings of organic vegetable salad, two organic snacks, farm specialty tea, swimming at the Majayjay falls, and permission to go fishing for tilapia at the fish pond or harvest vegetables at the garden (you’ll need to pay extra for what you pick or catch).

Those who want to spend the night at the farm can do so for ₱1,750 per head. Check-in time is at 1 p.m. and checkout is at 12 nn the following day. This price includes accommodations, snacks of unlimited green salads, fresh organic tea, dinner, and breakfast.

To learn more about Costales Nature Farms, you may call 0917-5393080 or 0922-8424876, or visit their website at www.costalesnaturefarms.com.

Incidentally, another organic farm you can visit in Laguna is Herbana Farms in Calamba. Like Costales Nature Farms, they offer micro-seminars, day tours, and overnight packages and accommodations; they also raise organic vegetables, chicken, pigs, and tilapia. You can get more information about Herbana Farms from their website, www.herbanafarm.org, or by calling/texting 0929-2698602.

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3. Yoki’s Farm in Cavite

Yoki’s Farm is a very special kind of farm. It may look like an ordinary farm to the casual viewer, but if you look closely at the plants, you and your kids will notice something rather different about them: they are not grown in soil. You see, Yoki’s Farm is a hydroponics farm. They use a modern planting technology where the planting medium is not soil but nutrient-filled water.

At the farm, you’ll find different types of lettuce, mushrooms, rosemary, oregano, basil, and other herbs. In addition to the vegetable farm, there is also a bird area, where you’ll see love birds, macaws, and peacocks.

You can also visit the antiques museum located right inside the farm. This museum houses a collection of priceless antiques and interesting trinkets that the farm owners have collected from all over the world throughout the years: giant Buddhas, precious porcelainware, terracotta warriors, jade ships, life-size Egyptian statues, tribal masks, and many, many others.

Yoki’s Farm is located at Mendez, Cavite, very near Tagaytay City. It is open to visitors every day from 8 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Entrance fee is just ₱100 per head, and that includes a pack of lettuce that you can take home with you.

If you go during the school days, it would be wise to call first, because the farm does not allow walk-in visitors when there are scheduled field trips from schools or other organizations. The farm’s contact number is 0922- 8014220.

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4. Alaminos Goat Farm in Laguna

If your kids are more interested in animals than plants, you may want to take them to see a goat farm instead. Along Maharlika Highway, in Alaminos, Laguna, you will find the Alaminos Goat Farm, which specializes in raising dairy goats.

Alaminos Goat Farm was not specially designed for tours, but they do welcome visitors. A trip there will let your child see how milk goats are raised and fed. If you’re lucky, you may even see the goats getting milked!

The farm also grows its own goat forage, so you and your family can see the different kinds of plants that are good for goats to eat.

If you are interested in buying goat milk or goat meat or maybe your own pet goat (in which case, you may want to buy forage as well), Alaminos Goat Farm is a good place to go.

For more information about Alaminos Goat Farm, visit their website at www.alaminosgoatfarm.com. To find out the best times to visit and how to get to the place, you can call 0917-5004294 or 0917-5001982.

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5. Ilog Maria Honeybee Farm in Cavite

Here’s another intriguing animal farm your children may want to see: a bee farm! Sure, a lot of us are scared of bees, but that does not make them any less fascinating.

At Ilog Maria Honeybee Farm, you can satisfy that fascination without any fear of getting stung, for the bees are viewed in action from behind a glass wall. The farm is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day except Mondays and holidays. If you wish to visit the honeybee museum as well, you will have to come between 8 and 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday, as those are the only days when the museum is open.

At the Ilog Maria shop, you can learn more about bee products and their health benefits. If you are interested in bee sting therapy, you can also get that here – or just learn more about it – free of charge!

Please note that, because bees are easily disturbed, there are a few strict rules that need to be observed when one visits Ilog Maria Honeybee Farm. Make sure your children are old enough and disciplined enough to follow rules such as “Keep quiet,” “Don’t tap on the glass wall,” and “Don’t run into the main bee farm,” for their own safety as well as the bees’ well-being.

The entrance fee is just ₱25 per person.

For a detailed list of rules in the Ilog Maria bee farm, and to download the map to their location, please go to http://www.ilogmaria.com/contacts/.

 

Photo credits: Gourmet Farm, Costales Nature Farm, Yoki Farm, Alaminos Goat Farm, Ilog Maria,