A Sunflower Farm In Kinawe, Libona, Bukidnon

Sunflower is an herb that produces brilliant, mostly big yellow flowers. The plant is still not yet so plentiful in the Philippines that a farm growing it attracts people’s interest. For cut flowers, people prefer roses, orchids and other flowers. Most people grow sunflower as ornamental plant because it is a beautiful sight in their garden. The flowers face the direction of the sun or the east in the early morning and follows the sun as it goes westward. When they mature, the flowers stop that movement, and just face east and droop down because they become too heavy for their stem to stay erect. The seeds of the sunflower can be extracted with oil for various industrial applications including cooking oil.

In Libona, Bukidnon a farm called Kinawe Blooming Farm is growing sunflower and other flowering plants with sunflower as its main produce. People go to the farm to see a sunflower, and to have a picture or video with the sunflowers and other plants as a backdrop. Entrance fee is 50 pesos which is consumable which means that the amount can be used to buy a farm produce of that amount.

Visitors to the farm can eat at the Blooming Farm Café when their presence there coincides with their meal or snack time. Other amenities include a ride on a cart drawn by a Brahman bull at a fee of 25 pesos per person. The cart axle though is not provided with leaf springs so that when one is on the cart he should prepare for a jolt on the buttocks when the wheels hit a bumpy ground.

The farm is about a 20 to 30 minutes ride from Cagayan de Oro through the Indahag- Kiliog route. It is best to go there if visitors have their own cars. One can also avail of a public transport on a PUJ that ply the route. But having that ride back home when its late in the afternoon might be difficult.                     

The best time to be in the farm when one’s purpose is to take pictures or create video is in the early morning or late in the afternoon when the sun is not yet too high up in the sky. Hot sunlight is harsh to the skin and body. In addition, a very bright sunlight will create undesirable shadows and contrast to pictures, whereas a cloudy weather with no rain and a diffused sunlight in the early morning and late afternoon shortly after sunrise or before sunset will give an appealing contrast and look to pictures.