A 28-year-old lady chemical engineer gave up her job in a multinational company three years ago to devote her time to organic farming in the cool mountains of Daraitan in Tanay, Rizal.

She is Ruselle Buenviaje who now manages the Platinum Farm producing mainly organic lettuce at the moment but with an array of other products under development for eventual commercial production. Ruselle gave up her employment in 2007 soon after her family bought in 2006 the first 5.5 hectares of varying terrain, some portions flat while other parts are sloping or rolling. Not long after, an adjacent 6.5 hectares was added, and the latest addition is a 3-hectare adjacent lot, making the whole property 15 hectares.

Ruselle is upbeat in her project, deeply committed to organic farming. The truth is, Platinum Farm is the first and only farm that has been certified so far by the Organic Certification Center of the Philippines (OCCP) in the province of Rizal. This means she does not use any chemical pesticide and fertilizer in growing her crops.

She has her own production unit of vermicompost, a potent organic fertilizer produced by earthworms.

Her vermicompost bins are concrete compartments that are several tiers high. Aside from vermicast, she also uses seaweed extracts for conditioning the soil and fertilizing her plants. The seaweed extract which she processes in a very simple way is fed to the plants through drip irrigation.

Aside from lettuce, she also grows strawberries and culinary herbs in her greenhouse. Then she has a mushroom production unit where she produces her own spawns and table mushrooms which she makes into mushroom burger. The spent substrate in the mushroom house is also used for enriching her planting beds.

She is also into coco sugar production and tuba gathering. Fresh chilled tuba is sold as a refreshing drink or made into vinegar and coco sugar. She has already mastered making coco sugar and vinegar.

Ruselle has also other vegetables grown in the open like eggplant, tomatoes, squash and others.

She processes some of her pumpkins into a special kind of ketchup. Other projects in the making are essential oil extraction from lemon grass, honey bee production, planting of many more coconut trees although there are many producing trees now in the property. She is producing a lot of seednuts for her own use as well as for other planters. By the way, she has been adjudged the most outstanding coconut farmer in the region and will soon compete for the national Gawad Saka award this year.