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Ex-DH Finds Money in Farming

Many Filipinos working abroad realize when they go home that the success they have been looking for is just right here.

One of them is forty-three-year-old Margie Allado of Brgy. Pias Norte, Currimao, Ilocos Norte. She worked in Hong Kong for two years as a domestic helper. She found out soon after coming back that the money she was looking for is in the farm.

She used the P10,000 that she saved from her salary in Hong Kong to put up a rice and feeds retail store beside her house, which is along the highway. She started with five bags of rice and then gradually increased to 20 bags. Because the store was doing well, her husband got a salary loan from the local electric cooperative where he was working so that she could increase her volume of trade.

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Posted on December 6th, 2008 under Entrepreneurs, Farming. Tags: , , , , . Comments: None

Nina Enrique : “Product research and innovation is a continual process”

A Bulacan native shares her insights on nipa and its entrepreneurial potential.

Four years ago, Czarina Nina Enriquez was a mere employee of a leading insurance firm, “Just another hay in the stack,” she described. But after the tragedy that beset her family-losing her father and the manager of their 18-hectare farm, she regarded a grand opportunity to step up her career. Her siblings, who all had pursued careers of their own in their respective fields, encouraged her to take over the farm that had slowly become idle. She trained for the business by enrolling in different technology courses in the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and other related cooperatives that focused on organic farming.

“The farm since time immemorial has been producing different products from nipa. Though I would visit and look after the farm when I was young, I didn’t know anything about the process of how the products were made. I joined cooperatives that delved on these matters and I got plenty of help from the local government of Bulacan,” Nina said.

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Posted on December 5th, 2008 under Entrepreneurs, Other Crops. Tags: . Comments: None

The Puto Bumbong Enterprise

Traditionally known as a Pinoy Christmas delicacy, the puto bumbong is also sold all-year round. Two puto bumbong sellers tell their business stories.

Most people around the world think of Christmas in terms of the colors red and green. Filipinos though, see Christmas in terms of lilac and yellow as it heralds the season of the puto bumbong and the bibingka.

Puto bumbong derives from the words “puto” (steamed glutinous rice) and “bumbong” (bamboo canon or cylinder).

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Posted on December 4th, 2008 under Entrepreneurs, Special Report. Tags: , , , . Comments: None

Commerce Graduate Succeeds in Coffee Production in Cavite

Apolonio Belamide of Silang, Cavite, has planted and traded Robusta coffee for more than 30 Years. Like most of his relatives and neighbors in Barangay Pook, Belamide is a second-generation coffee farmer and has been one all throughout his adult life.

On an average year, his farm, combined with seven of his siblings’, produces 300 metric tons of green coffee beans (GCB), making it the top coffee producer of the province, if not of Luzon. His combined family coffee farm spanning over a hundred hectares employs over 1,000 workers in their barangay. Neighboring farmers and small farm owners look up to his family for coffee farming and trading advice, and at times, for loan production capital. In fact, Belamide is one of the reasons why few of these farmers still keep their coffee farms.

“The temptation for these farmers to sell their farm lots to rich families in Manila looking for a vacation home is really great,” says Belamide in vernacular. “So we do whatever it takes to keep them farming, even if it means granting them loans without interest or profit.”

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Posted on November 29th, 2008 under Coffee, Entrepreneurs. Tags: , , . Comments: None

He Recycles Farm Wastes Into Gold

Gonzalo “Jun” Catans name has long been associated with household and industrial pest control. He has been in that business since 1961 and is still very much in the same business. Of late, however, he has also turned his attention in a big way to recycling farm wastes into gold.

He has three main commercial products recycled from various wastes. Foremost is activated carbon which has many industrial uses like purifying water supplies, softdrinks and many more. He makes activated carbon out of coconut shell which is plentiful in Southern Luzon where he also has his factory.

Another product is what he calls green charcoal, a fuel that produces higher heat than the ordinary wood charcoal. It is made of grass and other biomass like water hyacinth (wrongly called water lily in this country), tree leaves and many more.
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Posted on November 22nd, 2008 under Entrepreneurs. Tags: , , . Comments: 1

Engineer Goes into Full-time Farming

He has his own 12 hectares but also rents other people’s farm so he can have year-round production and year-round income too.

Farmers have different strategies in order to succeed in farming. Of course, they usually grow what they know how to produce and which they can sell to the market. But there are other strategies to maximize not only production but, more important profitability. Also important is sustainability.

One person we met lately who has his own unique strategy is Engr. Jaime Tecson of Pacalag, a remote but easily accessible barangay of San Miguel, Bulacan. His strategy is to produce a succession of crops so that he has income flowing in every few days throughout the year. He and his wife Nelia also work as a team. He takes care of production while Nelia takes charge of marketing their harvests. It is a partnership that has been working fine since 1999 when Jaime decided to make farming his fulltime job. Before that, he worked as an engineer of the National Electrification Administration and as manager of a foundation engaged in producing certified rice seeds.

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Posted on November 22nd, 2008 under Entrepreneurs, Farming, Rice. Tags: , , . Comments: None

Former Electrician Becomes A Top Yielder

From 1983 TO 1989, Engracio Martin of Brgy. Pag-asa, Rizal, Nueva Ecija worked in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia as an electrician. Even if his initial salary was not much, $380 a month with food allowance in the first three years, it even went down to $320 in the next three years.

Realizing that his employer only wanted to take advantage of the unemployment rate in the Philippines by offering lower salary, he finally decided to go home even if he did not have any definite plan for the future. He was certain that he would be able to manage his financial situation in no time at all. For one thing, he had saved some money from his meager salary and second, since he has a college degree in agriculture from the Sabani State Agricultural College in Gabaldon, Nueva Ecija, he could venture into farming.

When he went home, he bought a tricycle and used it as a public conveyance vehicle. It did not take long before someone mortgaged a hectare of rice land to him for P30,000 and that was the start of his farming. Three years later, an additional 7,000 sq. m. was mortgaged to him again. He drove his tricycle in the mornings and worked in the farm in the afternoons so he would be able to provide well for his family.

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Posted on November 20th, 2008 under Entrepreneurs, Rice. Tags: , , , . Comments: None

Michael Melendrez : “The first four years were the hardest”

A fresh graduate learned to run a farm and manage his own staff while exercising his passion.

When Michael Melendrez, manager and proprietor of Melendrez Farms finished his degree in Agriculture from UPLB, his father quickly convinced him to manage the farm that their family has been inherited with. “It was something that basically fell on my lap,” said Melendrez.

It was essentially an idle farm that neither two of Michael’s other siblings didn’t perceive to be that viable since their family, had always graduated with degrees in medicine. But since Michael knew the basics of soil improvement, his father’s encouragement was easy to receive.

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Posted on November 13th, 2008 under Entrepreneurs. Tags: , . Comments: None

There’s Big Money in Intercropping

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: . Comments: 2

Seed Growing Is A Lucrative Business

Seed growing is a laborious business. The good thing about it is that the hard work is compensated by the big income one can derive from it.

Five accredited seed growers in Nueva Ecija know this best because if not for their profits from seed growing, they wouldn’t be able to afford a well-furnished house, jeeps, other ventures, and, most of all, sending their children to school.

One of them is Patricia Molina, 48, of the Science City of Munoz, Nueva Ecija. She started working on her accreditation in 2000. And since she is a member of Community Rice Farming (CORFARMING), an organization of seed growers in Nueva Ecija, she has attended many seminars on seed growing and these eventually paved the way for her accreditation.
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Posted on October 14th, 2008 under Entrepreneurs. Tags: . Comments: None

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