Testimonials
Tablas Island in the Philippines: Location
Tablas Island in the Philippines (only 1 hour flight from Manila) offers money-saving, life-improving, travel-rich opportunities. Tablas has it all; tranquility, scuba diving, fish sanctuarys, caves, water falls, island hopping and is just a short boat ride from the world famous Boracay Island (24/7 Sand, Sun and Party). Tablas is still 'nature as it should be', and we like to keep it that way.
Will Irwin married to a Filipina) are developing the island of Tablas as a tourism- and retirement haven but we will also conserve the environment and sustain the well-being of local people by establishing partnerships with residents and government.
Benefits for them will be numerous and parts of profits will flow back to them in the form of reducing unemployment, having livelihood programs, scholing and other projects.
Will and Chris concluded that agriculture is the most obvious answer to help this country as the Philippines has all that is required to produce extremely high yields; what is lacking is mostly the implementation of the latest know-how and technologies. And that's exactly what we do at this moment; developing pili nuts 'high-tech' and on a large scale.
The obvious location of the farms are in the Bicol and Romblon Regions because the pili tree grows there indigenous. (Get high appreciation of real estate prices!); It is one of the top places for overseas retirement because of the low cost while the environment is as beautifull as Boracay which has 1 million visitors per year.
Basically the farm consists of Pili trees (which produces pili nuts for export) and because it takes 6 years to give a first harvest we grow organic 'quick cash crops' (eggplant, peanuts etc. which grow fast) between them since there is ample space for that and it increases our profits. We selected the 60 hectare because of the little rivers that are running accross; even in this very dry season the water is still flowing abundantly no draught for Tablas Highlands Organic Farm.
The pili trees can give a harvest for up to 100 years.
Pili nuts have great potential to develop into a major industry (a top export commodity-) for the Philippines.
Due to being an export commodity which bears a high selling price, combined with a relatively short supply of growers in the country, the Pili nut generates a high return on investment starting in year 6, and each year thereafter; up to 100 years and beyond.
By taking advantage of volume discounts and utilizing other economies of scale, the Farm brings down costs hence it increases ROI.
The projects have full support of the Philippine Government because it’s 'Green/Eco' and brings development to rural areas; Eco-tourism included.
Latest News about PhilAgriVest (July 2011)
June saw final completion of the Administration building and start of construction on the Farm Guest House.
Purpose of building the guest house is to meet the needs of the ever increasing number of guests visiting the Farm – shareholders, agriculturists and other experts like the recent Canadian CESO experts in Honey Bee. Additionally, we are starting to get requests by agencies on Tablas to rent out the Admin building for seminars and conferences. Our new Farm Controller, in coordination with AJ in our Global City office, will be overseeing the reservations and revenues earned by renting out the Admin building to others.
A recent 3 day seminar on Honey Bee keeping coordinated by Philagrivest with CESO, the Romblon University and Local government officials, with more than 50 participants is a good example of the kinds of use being made of the Admin building – in addition of course to the building being our administrative field headquarters for Philagrivest.
CESO is a Canadian executive service organization, funded by the Canadian government to assist developing countries. They have just recently started a 5 year development program for Romblon province. In addition to providing assistance with tourism development like planning, marketing and training of staff at hotels, resorts and restaurants – they will provide a Canadian agricultural expert at the municipality of San Andres. This will greatly benefit Philagrivest, and as written above, they will be of continuing assistance with our honey bee project and in general, our overall farm activities.
Phase III Philagrivest Shares
Limited investment opportunities continue to be open to those seeking to join PhilAgriVest, Inc in our farming activities. Shares of stock in PhilAgriVest, Inc are sold on a private basis.
There remain approximately 8,000 shares to be sold. Once those are gone, no more shares will be issued. Those wishing to purchase additional shares will need to purchase them from fellow shareholders who may desire to sell shares.
Potential investors are reminded there are two payment plans available for Philagrivest stock:
$12,000 cash for a unit (which is comprised of 100 shares of stock)
$5,000 down payment, with balance payable monthly with interest over a 24 to 36 month period.
Additional shares will be used for working capital needs to support the final “build out” of the Phase II land.
New Potential Crops
Will and Chris are analyzing the potential to increase the Farm’s coffee plantings, and to add another great residual income crop – macadamia nuts. Several varieties of coffee are being grown in the Philippines, domestic demand is ever rising, and our Farm location and soil conditions appear ideal for growing coffee at the 600 meter plus elevation level. Macadamia nuts appear to have a very attractive profit margin and they fit into our overall goal of providing our investors long term residual income. Like the Pili Nut, once harvesting begins, the tree can be harvested every year for 75 years or more.
More about these crops and how it will fit into our near and long term operating plans will be presented in the August newsletter.
Personnel
With the increased harvesting activity, in June we added an Operations Controller at the Farm to assist with overall financial and operational control over operations.
We currently are recruiting for an overall Farm Manager – one with a degree in Agriculture and a minimum of 10 years experience in managing a large farm, so we can strengthen our planning and organizing, and coordination for getting harvested crops to the market.
Later this year we will be adding a Director of Sales and Marketing to develop the proper marketing, distribution and sales network to move our crops off Tablas and into the Boracay and Luzon markets, as volume dictates.
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