MANILA, Philippines -- Every now and then we meet interesting agri-people with wonderful ideas or projects. And what we think as one smart idea is the new project of Dr. Pablito P. Pamplona and his son Joseph Anthony in Laak, Compostela Valley.

Of course, Dr. Pamplona is a prominent figure in agriculture, especially in fruit trees and more lately in oil palm and rubber. His son Joseph, on the other hand, is a banking and finance graduate from Ateneo de Davao who chose agribusiness as his career. He is now the co-manager of the fast expanding agribusiness projects started by his father, who has now retired as professor and scientist from the University of Southern Mindanao.

What Dr. Pamplona started as a small fruit tree nursery has now become a much bigger operation. Aside from his plantation of 1,000 mature pummelos, 3,000 longkong, 1,500 durian trees plus smaller numbers of mangosteen, mango and a few other exotic fruit trees, the father and son (since Joseph joined the business in 2006) have been on an expansion mode.

They have a 20-hectare oil palm plantation that is now productive. Another 15 hectares have been recently planted to this oil crop. They have gone big in oil palm seedling nursery operation as well as in the large scale production of budded rubber trees. They have a stock of about 100,000 budded rubber tree seedlings which have been reserved by other planters.

And what is their bright new project? Dr. Pamplona has leased a 100-hectare portion of the ancestral lands of the Indigenous People in Laak, ComVal. The father and son are going to transform the area into a showcase of the improved techniques in the production of just four high-value crops, namely: oil palm, rubber, longkong and mangosteen.

Why these four crops? They have bright money-making potentials and they can be planted by the Indigenous People in their ancestral lands. After all, they have no less than 49,000 hectares of such land.

The Pamplonas will devote an area as training center for the Indigenous People in the area. They will learn to grow the four crops, and Dr. Pamplona will link them to the buyers. After three years, 10 hectares of the leased area which would already have established crops will be turned over to the community of Indigenous People for them to manage as an honest-to-goodness business enterprise. The income will be for the Indigenous People to keep.

The Pamplonas will also use the place to produce large volumes of planting materials so that the people will have a ready source of selected varieties for planting.