Agriculture Business Week

The Bagobo-Tagabaw tribe in Barangay Sibulan, Toril District, Davao City has proven that organic farming works and can go large scale with high-end niche market.

Residing near the foot of Mt. Apo, the Philippines’ tallest peak, the tribe grows super sweet organic banana. Hernan Ambe, operations manager of Sibulan Organic Banana Growers Multipurpose Cooperative (SOBAGROMCO), said they are using the Bungulan variety, because it can thrive well under organic environment. The ‘fingers of the fruit grow up to 14 inches in length, longer than the Cavendish variety which is traditionally exported.

Ambe, a Bagobo-Tagabawa native and a barangay councilor, said that the Foundation for Agrarian Reform Cooperatives in Mindanao, Inc. (Farmcoop), a non-government organization established in 1995 to help the government implement the agrarian reform law, was instrumental in engaging his fellow natives to grow organic banana.

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Posted on November 4th, 2008 under Fruits. Tags: Banana, Mindanao. Comments: None

Nutrition and management are key components of production, and are critical to ensure that the modern sow achieves her genetic potential for reproduction. We often measure efficiency by the number of piglets weaned per sow per year However, what is more important, according to the Alltech scientists in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, is the lifetime performance of the sow. This is a vital element in reducing the overall cost of pig production.

REDEFINING MINERAL NUTRITION
Alltech, a world leader in animal health, is redefining mineral nutrition. With this objective in mind, the global company has come out with Bioplex mineral - a proprietary range of highly bioavailable organic trace minerals that could revolutionize the livestock industry.

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Posted on November 4th, 2008 under Livestock. Tags: Pigs/Hogs. Comments: None

Even at 69, Ernesto Romero of Pinagpanaan, Talavera, Nueva Ecija, a UP Los Banos graduate who never worked in either government offices or private companies, continues to look for more income from high-value crops. His new discovery is green papaya, and he uses the Sinta variety and Taiit-an sili, aruy-uy, and tomato as intercrops.

He said it is a lot better to market green papaya than ripe papaya fruits and claimed that with green fruits, he has no problems on rejects and fruitflies. In contrast, many ripe fruits are rejected because of abnormal shape and size. Even if the price of ripe papaya is higher than the green ones, his sale from green papaya is still much more.

He calculated that he can easily get a gross income of P1.5 million from a hectare in 1.5 years. That’s because he has 1,000 plants per hectare and the fruits of each plant in 1.5 years would be worth P1,500.

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Posted on November 4th, 2008 under Entrepreneurs. Tags: Entrepreneurs. Comments: 2

As a public R&D (research and development) investment, the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) is well worth it, according to a team of experts who made an external review of the Institute’s impact.

Consisting of retired International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Deputy Director General Dr. Fernando A. Bernardo, former UP Mindanao Chancellor Dr. Rogelio V Cuyno, Dr. Louie A. Divinagracia, and Dr. Mercedita A, Sombilla, the team was commissioned by the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) to conduct the impact evaluation last year.

In their report, the team said that PhilRice started to make an impact even at the early stage of its development “without waiting for new technological innovations in its first six to seven years of existence to get going in extension, knowledge dissemination and techno transfer activities.”

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Posted on November 4th, 2008 under Rice. Tags: PhilRice, Rice. Comments: None

Whenever Filipinos talk about desserts, they will never forget to mention ube (Dioscorea alata L.), a high-value crop that is usually processed into jam, ice cream, yogurt, and fillings for hopia, cakes, pastries, and breads. Lately, ube or purple yam is starting to be known as a health food for its high anthocyanin content.

Ube also contains a special type of protein that has an anti-hypertensive property, according to a study conducted by the biotechnology team of PhilRootcrops. This discovery adds value to ube, making it a potential medicine for hypertension and other immune-related diseases like diabetes.

With the crop’s medicinal value and market potential, purple yam production should be given much attention, but the opposite is happening in the Philippines. Here, yams are usually cultivated in highly weathered tropical soils, which have low nutrient reserves, strong acidity, and high amounts of exchangeable aluminum (Al) that are toxic to many crops. Hence, the national average yield value from yam is 5 tons per hectare (ha), which is very low considering the high production cost of yam.

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Posted on November 4th, 2008 under Other Crops. Tags: Purple Yam, Ube, Yam. Comments: None