Agriculture Business Week

When one was raised in a farm, chances are, one will venture into farming after retiring. That’s why one prepares for this by buying farmland while still in service.

Such is the case of Judge Osmundo Villanueva who retired as a Regional Trial Court judge in Sultan Kudarat in 2005 after 35 years on the bench. He was still a young boy when his family migrated to Mindanao from Tarlac in search of the proverbial pot of gold in March 1949. The pot of gold, however, was nowhere in sight and his father ended up as a tenant of a big landlord in Esperanza, Sultan Kudarat.

Judge Villanueva was in Grade IV when his family arrived in Tacurong. “The world became different to me because I was mixed with other pupils speaking different dialects, which is why I speak Bisaya, Ilonggo, Maranaw, Ilocano, Tagalog, Pangasinense, and Capampangan fluently among several others,” he said.

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Posted on January 4th, 2009 under Corn/Maize, Farming, Rice, Uncategorized. Tags: Corn, Farming, Rice. Comments: None

Palayamanan, a diversified farming system developed by PhilRice, is indeed a very practical way to farm. And more and more farmers benefit from it, especially nowadays when the cost of living is too high.

Among them is 62-year-old Quirico Ilisam of Dingle, Iloilo. He owns a 1.4-hectare farm, and for 35 years he used to harvest just around 110 cavans(cav) per cropping. He finally adopted Palayamanan in November 2007. He allotted 1 ha to rice and the remailing to vegetables such as tomato, eggplant, squash, string beans, sponge gourd, okra, alugbati, gabi and sweet and hot pepper.

“Unlike rice that takes [about[ four months to get an income, some vegetables can be sold after just a month,” Quirico said.
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Posted on January 4th, 2009 under Farming, Rice. Tags: Farmer, Palayamanan, PhilRice, Rice. Comments: None

A partner of PhilRice in the implementation of TCP 3, a PhilRice-JICA project on integrated farming systems in Currimao, Ilocos Norte, recently received an award with a hefty cash prize from the Sipag at Tiyaga Foundation, which was founded by Senator Manuel Villar.

We were told that the story was one of the bases of the Foundation’s search committee for choosing Margarita “Margie” Allado. She was one of 16 former overseas Filipinos workers who were recognized as outstanding Filipino micro and small entrepreneurs for their exemplary performance and accomplishments.

Margie, who went to Hong Kong to work as a domestic helper, succeeded in her Palayamanan venture and sari-sari store, which she established at her residence along the national highway going to Manila. Her sarisari store grew into an agricultural store, which now sells animal feeds, farm implements, fertilizers, herbicides, and her own harvest of ampalaya, eggplant, tomato, okra, and pole sitao among others.

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Posted on January 4th, 2009 under Entrepreneurs, Farming, Vegetables. Tags: Entrepreneur, Farming, PhilRice, Veggies. Comments: None

Two graduates of medical technology residing in Padre Garcia, Batangas have become successful farmers with nothing but high praises for the bioorganic fertilizer Durabloom, which is manufactured by Novatech Agri-Foods Industries.

These farmer-innovators took the lead in Batangas in using Durabloom in a large scale on their sugarcane crops, and now vow to use it completely on their crops next year as they expect a big increase in their cane and sugar yields.

Indeed, the sugarcane crops of Oscar A. Tagalicud, 55, and Imelda OlaveLindog, 51, in Brgy. San Felipe have become the envy of many cane planters in Batangas as they now see the luxuriant growth of their crops. Barely five to six months have passed since the crops were applied with Durabloom but their canes have had a diameter of almost 1.5 inches towards the end of last August.

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Posted on January 2nd, 2009 under Entrepreneurs, Farming, Livestock, Ornamental, Poultry. Tags: Anthuriums, Durabloom, Entrepreneur, Farming, Fertilizer, Pigs/Hogs, Poultry. Comments: None

Farmers in Ilocos Norte normally have small farms, 0.75 hectare (ha) on the average. Seldom are there farmers with more than 3 ha. But for hard working farmers, farm size is not of a constraint to successful farming even under the semi-arid conditions of the Ilocos provinces.

Compared to most farmers, Onofre Balantac of Barangay Sulongan, Pasuquin and Honorio dela Cruz of Barangay San Guillermo, San Nicolas are relatively young at 38 years old. However, both of them are already classic examples of the many farmers in Ilocos Norte who derive a satisfactory income from their small farms. This is because Onofre and Honorio are innovators. They always seek for new information and technologies that can help improve their farm productivity and income.

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Posted on January 1st, 2009 under Farming, Rice. Tags: Entrepreneurs, Farmer, Farming, Garlic, Rice. Comments: None

In many low-lying areas in San Antonio, Nueva Ecija, rice farms are not cultivated during the wet season because of flood water from neighboring towns and provinces normally come together in these areas. In many instances floodwater is at least a meter high for no less than a week and hence, transplanted seedlings are already rotten when the water subsides.

Among the town’s 16 barangays, 7 have been identified by a team of Filipino researchers as low-lying areas, which serve as catch basin of neighboring municipalities, Tarlac, Pampanga, and Zambales during the wet season. Water depth reaches 1.5 meters, thereby making farmers despondent in producing rice.

Farmers stubbornly plant rice in these areas, hoping against hope that their crop would survive possible flood. In some instances, their crops barely survive floodwater and their yields are low as they are still to find a variety that may be able to survive submergence.
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Posted on December 31st, 2008 under Farming. Tags: Farm, Farming, Low-Lying Farms. Comments: None

There’s probably no sweeter reward for extensionists than to find one day that a once stubborn farmer has turned into one of the foremost advocates of the new technology.

Lito Sadiaran, 52, of Barangay Pias Norte, Currimao, Ilocos Norte, was considered a stubborn farmer until he got the PhilRice Palayamanan project in 2001 and subsequently in the Technical Cooperation Project of PhilRice and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) called TCP 3.

“I would say a lot of baloney things before whenever somebody tried to teach me something new,” Lito said.

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Posted on December 30th, 2008 under Farming, Technology. Tags: Farmer, Technology, Veggies. Comments: None

He may not have won in his second mayoralty bid last May 2007 elections, but his passion for farming has not and will never fade.

Mario Camporedondo Calayco, 62, is proud of his 15 hectare farm in President Roxas, Cotabato. He is a native of Leon, Iloilo but just like the adventurous Pinoy, he ventured to Mindanao and found it as a “land of promise…and fulfillment.”

Convinced of the good opportunities the province of Cotabato had to offer him, he settled in this province and served for 15 years as mayor of the municipality of President Roxas, Cotabato.

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Posted on December 30th, 2008 under Entrepreneurs, Farming, Fruits, Livestock. Tags: Coconut, Durian, Lanzones, Mangosteen, Rambutan. Comments: None

Valfrie “Val” Tabian, now a senior police superintendent, equivalent to lieutenant colonel in the Army. We visited his farm in Tuao, Cagayan last August and we noticed that much have changed. This means that this police o cer is now well entrenched into farming, thereby ensuring him a comfortable retirement 11 years from now when he turns 55.

Val cultivates a bigger farm; in 2005, he only had 10.7 hectares (ha) and now he owns 37 ha. This is because he has used much of his farm income in mortgaging lands near his farm at P50,000 to P80,000 a hectare. He also bought a few hectares.

Aside from buying lands, he has built infrastructures in his farm. His farm shed is now a concrete structure with a dining area, kitchen, toilet, and bathroom. Even at a distance, one can already notice his warehouse with a capacity of 800 bags.
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Posted on December 29th, 2008 under Entrepreneurs, Farming, Organic. Tags: Durabloom, Entrepreneurs, Farming, Fertilizer. Comments: None