Picture a coconut palm in Rizal, Palawan, in 2015. The land around it is degraded grassland. The surrounding barangays are among the poorest in the Philippines, with a 65% poverty incidence. Today, that same landscape holds roughly 500,000 hybrid coconut palms, and more than 1,300 people work around them.

That change is why we are proud to share this news. Lionheart Farms (Philippines) Corporation has been selected as a recipient in the Responsible SMEs in Asia category of the Asia Corporate Excellence & Sustainability Awards (ACES) 2023.

What the ACES Council Saw

Our submission rested on three commitments: the environment, the local economy, and the community.

Farming That Feeds More People

We follow the Korean Natural Farming protocol, with no chemicals and a steady focus on soil health. Our high-yielding coconut palms produce enough nutrients to feed 400 people per hectare. Sugarcane feeds 65, oil palm 100, and rain-fed rice eight.

Water use tells a similar story. Making a kilo of coconut sugar takes 200 liters, against 3,000 liters for sugarcane.

Inputs Made in the Community

We make our own bio-organic fertilizer from manure, rice hull, molasses, and other local bio-materials. In our record month, we produced more than 600 tons of granular fertilizer. Local suppliers, including the smallest ones, benefit from every order.

Pest control follows the same logic. In our laboratory, we raise Tetrastichus brontispae, a tiny wasp that is the natural enemy of the Brontispa beetle. Where chemicals might be used, nature does the work.

A Partnership Built on Dialogue

In 2015 we began conversations with the Palaw’an Indigenous Peoples of Barangays Ransang, Candawaga and Culasian. Those talks became a Memorandum of Agreement. We rent their land, and host families get priority for employment.

Every Lionheart leader learns the Adat, the customary law, and the Bizarra, the tradition of dialogue. Conflicts are settled through community consultation. Just under half of our local employees are indigenous persons.

Since 2018, we have also extended this model to local coconut farmers. Hundreds of partner farms across 14 barangays in Rizal and Bataraza now follow the same organic principles.

Opportunity That Multiplies

Coconut trees on our farms are short enough that women can harvest sap, work that was traditionally done only by men. Women make up 30% of our workforce. Beyond our gates, 34 of the 36 small businesses that opened since the project began were started by women.

Standards We Hold Ourselves To

Our products carry USDA Organic, EU Organic, JAS Organic, Philippine FDA, Kosher, Halal, SMETA, GFSI BRC, and Gluten-Free certifications. Lionheart is also the first agricultural company in Asia certified under the Climate Bond Initiative, supported by USAID and Greeninvest.

The work beyond the farm matters as much. The Gabay Kalinga Foundation runs programs on food security, illiteracy, inequality, and climate change. It includes the Katulduan Center and the Kabalikat Farmers program. Lionheart Academy trains our people to grow with us.

For All of Us

This recognition belongs first to the people behind it: the tappers, the nursery and bio-defense teams, our partner farmers, the Palaw’an elders, and the suppliers who grew with us. It also confirms a belief we hold: a farm can be a system that lifts a whole community.

We will keep building it, grounded in thoughtful innovation, for all of us.