From a minimum of “around five,” they go up to 15 employees at peak times. The number of Arton staff varies with production needs. When visiting the Philippines, he brings much needed supplies that are often hard to procure in the country. When operating remotely out of Hawaii or Washington, he relies on internet communications 24/7. He schedules farm site visits three to four times a year, sometimes spending up to one month per visit. “We were able to secure land close to our grow-out locations that had the premier quality water profile we desired,” he says. They spent a year looking for a site in the island with two non-negotiable factors. This requires a lot of advanced planning, stockpiling and ingenuity going into keeping the hatchery running,” he says. Being in Southern Mindoro, it can be difficult to sometimes get the most basic of supplies. “Our biggest challenge is also one of our biggest advantages and that is the isolation of our location. The provincial capital is almost 175 kilometers away. The farm is in the coastal town of Magsaysay and located at the southernmost tip of the province. “There really isn’t a ‘commute’ possibility with the remote location and 24-hour nature of the work,” he says. Mark considers the 2019 wipe-out as part of his company’s growing pains. In the field of hatchery, Mark is privy to the latest information in shellfish technology, being based between Hawaii, Washington State and the Philippines. “We wanted to have an aquaculture company that could utilize Mark’s talent in raising marine life, along with supporting our family currently living in the Philippines,” Tony says. He is the son of Tony, who is Arton’s CEO and owner.Īrton Aquafarms was specifically conceptualized with Mark in mind. “The goal of this company – which actually started out as a pig farm then a mango farm to a fish pond to a vegetable farm selling peppers for pizza toppings – was to create a company that would support the family still in the Philippines,” Tagal says. Arton is an amalgamation of the two brothers’ first names. One of the things that continued to connect him to them all these years is farm ventures. He left behind his siblings, most of whom still live in the country to this day. In the 1960s, Antonio “Tony” Tagal left his hometown in the Philippines to start a new life in the U.S. Arton Aquafarms is also a story of a man who left but never forgot.
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