Agriculture Business Week

Not many people may realize it but the orchid business is also creating a lot of jobs, not only for farm workers but also for traders and other entrepreneurs.

Just take the case of Edwin Veneracion and his wife Gina of San Rafael, Bulacan. When they put up their Golden Blooms nursery in 1998, they started with just three helpers and 3,000 dendrobium seedlings.

Twelve years later, they now have 50 workers who are full-time employees.

Their stocks have increased to more than 600,000 dendrobiums of various sizes, and a lesser number of vandas, cattleyas, and oncidiums.

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One successful agribusiness venture that continues to surge is Harbest Agribusiness Corporation owned by our good friend Arsenio ‘Toto’ Barcelona. This company started in 1997 with the introduction into the local market of the hybrid seeds of Known-You Seed Company of Taiwan. Years before, another company tried to introduce the same but the venture did not last long.

It took a very determined Toto Barcelona to make Known-You Seeds become a byword among progressive Filipino farmers. At first, Toto had to contend with the high cost of the hybrid seeds that he was promoting. Many farmers complained that unsprouted seeds of hybrid ampalaya were costing as much as P5 apiece. But that did not discourage Toto to promote Known-You Seeds. He just had to show that by planting hybrid seeds, yield could be multiplied many times and in the end the farmers will make more income.

For a start, he had to buy initial seeds which were first planted in trials at UP Los Baños with the help of Dr. Diosdado Castro, former staff of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC) in Taiwan. As expected, the trials were successful and that gave him confidence to make the business an honest-to-goodness business. He also had to conduct field demonstrations in the provinces.

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The Animal Products Development Center (APDC), a section of the Research Division of the Bureau of Animal Industry, is a most helpful government agency, if you ask entrepreneurs like Rene Almeda of Alaminos Goat Farm (AGF).

Almeda is most impressed by the professionalism and the dedication of the people running the agency. Of course, he is very thankful for the help APDC has provided AGF in developing a number of goat products. For one, APDC has developed new goat meat products with commercial potential. One of them is the smoked pure chevon longanisa which taste-testers consider superior to other meat sausages in the market.

Another version is the hungarian sausage which is also considered better than its counterparts in the market today. Actually, Josefina Contreras, APDC chief, says that whatever processed meat products that could be made from pork can also be made with goat’s meat.

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Here’s another unique business idea to help you earn more!

If you are interested in manufacturing soap products from detergent laundry soap to herbal soap, you should study the technology appropriate to each type.

It is also essential that you acquaint yourself with the basic requirements to be met in soap making. For example, an ordinary soap should be made from alkali and fats and oils (fatty acids), a moderate amount of matter insoluble in alcohol, and permissible additives. The finished product should neither bear any objectionable odor nor leave objectionable odor on fabrics and dishes after washing them and rinsing thoroughly with hot water. The soap should form suds or lather in a clean moderate hard water (less than 180m ppm CaC03) when tested.

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DS Pinoy Malunggay Products’ dynamic duo lets us in on how to stand out in the market of niche services and products.

Called “sajina” across the Indian subcontinent and “moringa” in English, malunggay is one of the country’s most useful plants-its purpose as varied and expansive as it’s one of the world’s most nutritional food sources and one of its most effective flocculants and coagulants that ever existed.

For years, Indians, Filipinos, Malaysians and Thais have been including malunggay leaves on their daily diets. Most Asians use them like spinach and the malunggay s fruit as a vegetable, much like asparagus. Both leaves and fruits are very nutritious, which contain many vitamins and minerals. One hundred grams of cooked malunggay leaves contain 3.1 g. protein, 0.6 g. fiber, 1.7 mg iron, 2,820 mg B-carotene, 0.07 mg thiamin, 0.14 mg riboflavin, 96 mg calcium, 29 mg phosphorus, 1.1 mg niacin and 53 mg vitamin C.

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An ex-salesman lets us in on the advantages and disadvantages of sharing entrepreneurial endeavors with your kin.

For more than 19 years now, Eugene O. Cebuala, general manager of Kiks Roasted Corn Coffee, has been an avid coffee drinker. “It’s as if my day’s incomplete without at least a cup of coffee. While I often get hyper acidic because of it, and the doctor has advised me to stay away from my favorite brew, I still can’t help myself,” he said.

And so, after a visit last year in Butuan where he saw his first encounter with a different kind of coffee-not from beans, but from corn-he also caught sight of promising agribusiness. After talking to the processor of the product and ironing out the rest of the details, Kiks was born.

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The indispensable Filipino side dish gets a makeover and creates a buzz in the food sector.

If there’s anything more Pinoy than eating rice and tuyo (smoked fish) sans silver utensils, it might just be eating rice, tuyo and atchara (pickled vegetable) with your bare hands.

“It’s a staple Filipino side dish,” said Flordeliza Valerio, owner of Delisha’s Home-made Atchara, “But why make a business out of it? First, it tastes great. It’s ulam all by itself. Second, it doesn’t just satisfy the taste buds, it’s also packed with health benefits. And lastly, it already has a market here in the country.”

Atchara is the Philippines’ contribution to the world of Asian pickles. It is known by many versions, and virtually any vegetable can be used to make it. The art of pickling have existed across the globe for centuries. Pickling food was once done out of necessity, before modern refrigeration and preservatives ever existed. There was a need to preserve foods grown on the farm through the non-growing seasons. This helped supplement the foods that were hunted and gathered from the wilderness.

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If there’s one common factor that can be attributed to a good number of successful food entrepreneurs of Pampanga, it will be their innovativeness and receptiveness to technology which undoubtedly propelled their businesses to where they are today.

Proof of this is the increasingly expanding market for their products which does not only benefit themselves but also the people in the community by providing employment and serving as a sure market for raw materials produced by smallhold farmers.

Four of them are Lai Manalang of Lailen’s Pastries in City of San Fernando, Lucia Miranda of Aiza’s Sweets in Sta. Rita, Francis Joseph Carreon of Carreon’s Sweets and Pastries in Magalang, and Gil Navarro of Navarro Foods International, Inc. in Masantol. They have availed of the technical assistance of DOST in terms of product development and processing which further boosted the marketability of their products.

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Sometimes a misfortune can be a blessing in disguise. Just like what happened to Ramilito Barte, 44, of Brgy. Latucan, Sariaya, Quezon.

In 1994 he was victimized by an unlicensed recruiter to whom he gave supposed placement and other fees that totaled more than P100,000, much of it borrowed from other people at a high interest. He was promised a job at a factory in Taiwan that never materialized. Later, the recruiter could no longer be found and his borrowed money had gone with the wind. He never saw the recruiter again.

Since he could no longer go abroad, he sought employment at a coconut processing company where he was hired to separate the coconut meat from its shell. Then in 1996, while still employed as a factory worker, he started farming in the hope of earning additional income to pay for the money he borrowed for his supposed employment in Taiwan. He planted Casino eggplant on one-fourth hectare. Casino is a prolific variety developed by East-West Seed Company. It produced a bumper harvest and he grossed P 150,000. That was an eye-opener to him.

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We were amazed during our trip to Aurora province to know that a weed called sabutan has been harnessed by women as a source of income. Although I failed to see how this plant looks like, our guide told us that some women are now even planting it so that they would have a steady supply of materials for making handicrafts.

The sabutan handicrafts are on display for sale at the Baler Pasalubong Center where there are four exhibitors. One of them is the Sabutan Weavers Association of Barangay Buhangin, which is composed of 25 members who are all housewives.

Connie Arroyo, treasurer of the Association, said some women simply produce colored sabutan materials that are ready for weaving. A small bundle of colored weaving materials costs P50, while those without any color fetch P35 a bundle. One bundle could be woven into eight ladies’ hats. Part-time weavers can make 10 ladies hats a day.

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A jack-of-all-trades tells us why the internet is as important as having a good product.

Nobody’s ever told Larrimar Tia that he does so much for a 35-year old: he’s a graphic artist, a software architect, an IT. consultant, one of the country’s pioneers in Web development, an author and a poet with his works published in his own website larrimar.com, and presently Chief Innovation Officer of LVEWORLD Corporation, a start-up company responsible for one of the first 8-in-1 herbal coffee products in the Philippines.

He sad, “After working in a Hong Kong firm as a web developer, I wanted to do something different. After all, I had been in the IT industry for over 15 years and I’ve always wanted to have my own company. Actually I started as a freelance consultant, then I formed my own corporation which is apart from the consulting business that I am involved right now.”

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An Isabela seed grower shares his back story and insights on how to make a more sellable yield.

Hardwork is no stranger for entrepreneurs like Alfredo Arpagila. Apart from being a farmer in Alicia, Isabela, one of the country’s most well known granaries, Alfredo holds a valuable position at the National Food Authority (NFA) and owns a town hospital, managed by his wife doctor.

The role of a farmer was bestowed to him as far back as he was just in high school, “My parents were residents of Isabela,” he cheerily recalled. “They were farmers, so they taught me everything I know, basically-down from cultivating the soil up to harvesting. I grew up watching them work in the farm with other farmers, so as early as junior high, I already knew my agriculture. And that’s what I did with my children too,” he said.

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Rolando “Rudy” Mintac was in third grade when his parents arrived in Brgy. Ramada, Maria Aurora, Aurora Province (then still a part of Quezon Province) from Manaoag, Pangasinan in 1965 not necessarily to acquire cultivable lands, but to fulfill their “religious mission” to follow the sun anti settle at the east.

Although other Ilocano settlers were busy clearing lands from their thick vegetation, Rudy’s parents were so engrossed in their religion such that they were contented in becoming tenants if only to produce food for their family.

A series of typhoons that hit Maria Aurora when Rudy was already a second year college student probably turned the tide for him. All the nuts of the coconut trees in the plantation fell down with the typhoon, forcing Rudy to drop out from college.

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Meet a civil engineer who is successful in commercial production of corn, sugarcane, poultry and some fruit trees. He is Engr Raul Carreras of Tigaon, Camarines Sur, a 1982 civil engineering graduate from the University of Nueva Caceres in Naga City.

While practicing his engineering profession, he also dabbled in farming. It all started after he got married in 1985. He planted two hectares to corn and got five tons per hectare. He sold his harvest at only P5 per kilo and grossed P25,000 per hectare. That gave him a good enough profit because the cost of production was only P12,000 per hectare.

From then on, he increased the hectares he planted by leasing other people’s farms. He is into corn production to this day, planting the grain crop on 40 hectares two times a year. Although the cost of production has gone up to P50,000 per hectare due to increased costs of inputs and labor, he says it is still profitable to grow corn. That’s because he can produce 10 to 12 tons per hectare. Even at a low price of P10 per kilo ex-farm, the profit margin is still very attractive.

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