East meets West
At Ponderosa Leisure Farms in Silang, Cavite, where we are building our new home, there is a store in the development that sells various items, including vegetable seeds. As I looked over the selection of available seeds, I noticed their origin, the East West Seed Company. What an amazing coincidence, as that firm is owned by one of my cousins from Holland [our fathers were partners in a family-owned seed company].
Early in November, I decided to contact the firm, intending to pay them a visit in Bulacan, just north of Manila. Another fortunate coincidence – the firm was about to celebrate its 25th anniversary a few days later and, of course, we were invited to this landmark event.
East-West was set up by my cousin to develop hybrid vegetables that would be particularly well suited for growing in Southeast Asia – the firm now has branches in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and India.
An overflow of farmers from throughout the Philippines attended the 25th anniversary event that included tours of the farm, laboratories, and processing facilities and, almost needless to say, the firm is making a major contribution to the agricultural development of this part of the world.
THE PICTURES. Siem or Simon, my cousin, is shown in one of the pictures addressing the crowd at the firm’s base in the Philippines. We bought seeds that day and planted some at our condo in Malate; the picture at the top right shows the development of our vegetable patch in Silang.
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