I have often advised my relatives and friends with several hectares of agricultural land in the provinces surrounding Metro Manila, like Batangas, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal, to grow high-value crops that can yield anywhere from 500,000 to a million pesos per hectare in a year. One does not have to be an agribusiness expert to realize that growing rice, sugar or corn in these small farms would not be economically profitable. When they ask me what are these crops I am talking about, I usually have a litany of fruits and vegetables, such as coffee, cacao, sweet papaya, sweet pineapple, ampalaya, honey dew melon, lettuce, cabbage and eggplant. I also mention seed companies like Harbest and East West Seed as the sources of seeds and technology.

After a recent trip to South Korea where I was exposed to a variety of products with different health benefits but with "No Approved Therapeutic Claims" (NATC), I would like to add numerous herbs that are the ingredients for these NATCs. In fact, I brought home a health drink combining ginseng with other herbal drinks that further strengthened my mother as she prepared to celebrate her 100th birthday last October 9. She immediately felt the energizing effects and now is sure she will live way beyond 100.

Since Asian countries will lead the global economy in consume spending growth in the next twenty years (the U.S. will cease to be the engine of growth for the world economy and much less Japan), I really am strongly advising families with small plots of agricultural land in provinces with good infrastructures to take a look at the wide range of herbs that the emerging markets like China, India, South Korea and other rapidly growing countries will increasingly demand as they turn to health supplements. Preventive health care is the name of the game in these countries. Curative medicine is getting extremely expensive.

A recent article in the Food and Agribusiness Monitor of the University of Asia and the Pacific provides very valuable information on NATCs. Written by agribusiness specialist Senen Reyes, the article enumerates the most marketable herbs in Asia today. He makes special reference to tea preparations made from different herbs, fruits, and edible plants. Coffee, chocolate drinks and juices with their inherent anti-oxidant characteristics, lycopene and phytochemicals have been given new twists with value added ingredients. These ingredients come from the most common local plants or trees, such as ampalaya, coconut, malunggay, tomato, and guava to the exotic like agaricus, ganoderma, goji, noni, and taheebo.

There are the tea products made from the ABS (anise, peppermint, bitter melon) herbs as well as lagundi, sambong, and charagen bitter melon. Their tea products made from their leaves or fruits are purported to wash away unhealthy toxins and waste; to alleviate constipation; and to be good for cough, colds, and asthma as well as for dissolving kidney stones and curing urinary tract infections; and finally to be a dietary supplement for diabetes. Then there are the carica herbal teas, i.e. anona flower, guava, banaba, coconut, golu kola, ginger, lagundi, lemon grass, papaya flower, mangosteen, pitopito, sambong, tasang gubat, wild ampalaya, co-enzyme Q10. Teas made from these herbs or trees act as digestive aid; help regulate blood sugar; help eliminate kidney stones; alleviate cough and asthma; help regulate blood pressure and lower cholesterol; are good for general body cleansing; and relieve stomach pain, sore throat, nausea, and motion sickness. These are maladies that usually increase with increased urbanization and industrialization which will be at the most rapid rate in the emerging markets of Asia in the coming decades.

Already there are leading players in the industry of NATCs. Some of the products (e.g. ABS herbs, Carica, Charantia, Jimm's) are advertised through tri-media/billboards and positioned in mainstream markets like the major supermarket and drug store chains while others are sold through agents and exclusive distributors like Aim Global Inc. (Liven coffee) and Shema Ultimate Business Innovative Concept Corporation (Choco del Shema). Multinational company Nestle has come up with its own line of Nescafe body partners (Protect, Fit, Relax, Lingzhi) which provide value added benefits over those that classic coffee offers.

Consumers at all income levels can have their pick. Packaging and prices vary widely from boxes of 18s, 20s, 30s for single serve tea bags coffee and chocolate sachets to 1 - 2 liter bottles. Prices can range from less than P10 per tea bag to as much as P2,500 for a liter of health juice. The strategy is first to cater to the growing domestic market and then to export to the Northeast Asian countries, which include Japan which has the largest population of aging individuals who are ready markets for NATCs. So, what are you waiting for? Even before you reach retirement, prepare your small farm that grow, among others, the ingredients for NATCs.

Those who want to receive the regular publications of the Center for Food and Agribusiness of UA&P may email cfauap@yahoo.com. or call Tel. 637-0912 to 26, local 247. For comments, my email address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.