Agriculture Business Week

One municipal head who is really serious in propagating organic farming in his own town is Mayor Leoncio “Jun” Evasco of Maribojoc, Bohol. We met him at an organic agriculture presentation at the Natural Farming Institute in Panabo City last March 19.

The presentation was attended by the head of the Agricultural Training Institute, officials of TESDA, Department of Trade and Industry executives, farmers, Davao City officials and other stakeholders.

Mayor Evasco is in the process of setting up the facilities for a demo farm and training center on organic agriculture in Brgy. Bayacaba, Maribojoc. He has already planted 10 kinds of grasses and several leguminous shrubs on two hectares that will be used as feed for the farm animals. The buildings for goats, pigs, office and some other facilities are already up. In the process of construction is a fermentation house where the fermented juices of fruits, vegetables and other plants will be processed for use in organic farming. He says training will start middle of this year when everything will already be in place.

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When Edwin Jimenez, 61, of Mabilo, New Washington, Aklan, decided to stop using chemical pesticides, he did not only get higher yield and a premium price for his produce. He was able to cut production costs while continuously innovating and creating ways that would also benefit his fellow farmers and the environment.

Edwin has been into farming for the last nine years, taking charge of the 1.6-hectare family-owned farm which was initially planted to fruit trees and vegetables. Two years ago, he went into rice farming. In between farm works, he devotes part of his time to the family’s refrigeration and air-conditioning business in Kalibo, which is a few kilometers away from his farm.

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Coffee farmer Quirica Cadava of Butuan province wakes up every dawn with so much enthusiasm. She has been counting the days until she could finally harvest the ripe coffee cherries with love and care. She smiles in content as she sees how her passion and dedication have resulted in a good harvest this year.

For Quirica Cadava of Tungao, San Mateo, Butuan City, the early morning sight of coffee cherries—all red, ripe and glistening as they hang from the dew-covered coffee trees, all awaiting harvest as the first pick of the season—is a source of wonder, hope and inspiration.

The coffee cherries represent not simply the fruits of her labor and care but also the chance for a better future for her family and relatives.

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Dr. Jayson Canson is an opthalmologist and plastic surgeon who loves farming. Despite his buys schedule practicing his medical profession, he is undertaking his own farming projects in a portion of St. Martha Farms in Teresa, Rizal, where his parents run a 70,000 head poultry contract breeding operation and a Pangasius hatchery.

Piggery is a pet project of the medical doctor. He has a number of breeders which are selected. One acquisition is a Pietrain sow with a small percentage of Duroc blood. This particular sow gave birth to 23 piglets, 21 of which survived. Some of the piglets were distributed to other mother pigs for nursing.

He also does his own experiment, one of which is crossing the native pig with the white imported breeds. One of the offspring of the native pig was made into lechon during the farm’s Christmas party last year.

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The farming systems and Soil Resources Institute(FSSRI) of the University of the Philippine Los Banos(UPLB) has bagged the 2009 Global Development Marketplace(DM2009) competetive grant.

This competitive grant for innovation in development is administered by the World Bank and sponsored by the World Bank Institute, Global Environment Facility (GEF), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

With the theme “100 Ideas to Save the Planet,” the competition challenged participants to come up with an idea from their own communities to help save the planet and its people from the effects of climate change.

There were over 1,700 project entries from all over the world. Out of these, 100 finalists from 47 countries, including 8 from the Philippines, were invited to World Bank’s headquarters in Washington DC to present their projects. And the FSSRI and 3 other Filipino groups were among the 25 participants chosen to receive grants of up to $200,000 each.

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Remember the Oakwood Mutiny? The group of soldiers Magdalo protested against the irregularities in the army but they got caught, detained and charged with coup d’ etat.

Captain Laurence Louis B. Somera of the 1st Scout Ranger Regiment, Special Operations Command of the Philippine Army is one of them. Though he was granted conditional pardon by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo after being detained for more than four years, he was discharged from the military.

He was really disheartened by this as he had been with the military for almost 17 years. Next to his family, his military service matters to him the most.

Today, the 39-year-old captain is very happy with his new engagement and that’s farming.

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At 29, Romeo Yapit is awarded Outstanding Young Farmer of the Philippines. No doubt that’s quite an achievement.

This enterprising young farmer of Purac, Sinait, Ilocos Sur started fanning in 2002. He had to stop his schooling as he had to support his family for his father had a heart attack. He was a second year mechanical engineering student then.

Thinking of a marketable crop that would not consume much soil nutrients, Yapit observed that planting different vegetables year round and watermelon after rice was profitable.

This might be the solution, he told himself. So with the help of his brother Jerome, Yapit planted their 8,000 square meter land to various vegetables including eggplant and tomato. And he has been right; his strategy has worked out.

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Here’s a unique real estate venture. Lot buyers use only up to 20 percent of the land area for the house they will build and the rest of the property will be utilized for growing food crops or ornamental plants.

Interesting?

That’s the contract that the Manila East Lakeview Farms (MELF) makes with buyers of its lots in its development area in Barangay San Guillermo in Morong, Rizal. The contract also requires buyers to submit in the soonest possible time their detailed development plan, and to immediately fence their lot.

A division of Prime East Properties Inc., MELF has sold 55 to 60 percent of the initially developed 36.6 hectares of the consolidated 300 hectares of hilly land in San Guillermo, says farm manager Bobby Mandac.

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Almost 2,000 farmers from to municipalities covering 29 barangays of Palawan recently gathered in Brgy. Inagawan, Puerto Princesa for the first Palawan-wide farmers’ field day and forum.

Inagawan is one of the sites of the Location-Specific Technology Development (LSTD) program in Palawan. The program, which aims for farmers to develop farming technologies that are best suited to their specific farming conditions, is PhilRice’s support to the national Rice Self-Sufficiency Plan.

The field day included a field tour, viewing of exhibits, ceremonial turnover of rice hull carbonizer and drumseeder, and farmers’ forum. Moreover, it featured farm demonstrations showing the modified dapog technology, use of drumseeder, biomass recycling, Palayamanan® system, nutrient management through the leaf color chart and minus-one element technique, rice seed production technique, carbonized rice hull, and the flatbed dryer.

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Rolly Lagaya, the successful poultry farmer from San Jose, Batangas shares with us his “innovative” tale of success.

Arapid change is now sweeping the Philippine poultry industry. The sector—which is predominantly a backyard affair—has now stepped up with nearly all farms operating at a calibre similar to that of commercial operations. Nowadays, rarely you would see small raisers sowing corn grains to feed the chickens roaming around their backyard and housing them in bamboo or wood-made cages. Minute operators now house their birds in modern fabricated domiciles and fed those using calibrated feeders and waterers. The evolution, according to pundits, is caused by tremendous competition in the market as well as the fast-paced and ever changing lifestyle of consumers.

Rolly Lagaya, owner of Lagaya Farms in San Jose, Batangas is happy to be a part of the sector’s revolution. An engineer by profession, he has established his farm together with his parents in 1975 as a mere family business. Started with 500 heads, the farm has now 200,000 birds in tow and producing 175,000 eggs per day. “Our farm’s expansion has been continuous. Whenever there’s a new technology, we always adapt it. We were the first farm in Batangas that has elevated the poultry houses. Unlike other farmers, we are always open to new technologies. We love new discoveries.”

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With the current El Nino that we are experiencing and the future dry spells that we will have brought about by global warming, a clarion call to all of us for water conservation is in order.

When we speak of water, we refer to freshwater that is not only essential for life but also a “life blood” for agriculture, industry and domestic households. Being a limited resource in our planet, water is becoming more and more precious because of our population growth, pollution and climate change.

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By adopting recommended farm methods, farmers in Agbannawag, Rizal, Nueva Ecija are able to increase rice production every season.

Thanks to the Technical Cooperation Project 3 (TCP3) of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), farmers learned of recommended farm practices, resulting in significant increase in yield and income.

The project has 40 fanner-beneficiaries. They were classified either as farmer-partners (FP) or participating farmers (PF).

TCP 3 primarily aimed to compare yield and production cost of technology demonstration farms of farmer-partners (TDF-FP) with the farms of the PFs. The FPs did all the recommended methods, while the PFs were allowed to choose farm practices they would want to do.

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Plant breeding  and biotechnology researchers at the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) are using DNA fingerprinting.

Rice breeders disclose that fingerprinting, used to characterize a DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) which contains the heritable characteristics of an organism, is essential for crop breeding.

The paper Genetic fingerprinting: Advancing the frontiers of crop biology research, by Dr. Gabriel Romero, Cheryl Adeva, and Zosimo Battad II explains that fingerprinting helps breeders select the traits they need to develop new varieties.

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Filipino farmers who are searching for a system that is not only environment friendly but improves their income as well should look no further. The answer to their quest: organic farming.

In Mindanao, at least 120 hectares of rice farms in Sultan Mastura, Maguindanao is planted to organic rice. It is an agriculture practice that is already gaining ground around the country’s second largest island as many farmers have now seen the sweet harvest of those who went ahead of them and practiced what was earlier was less popular.

“Organic agriculture is the answer,” pointed out Jessica Reyes-Cantos of the Manila-based Rice Watch and Action Network. “It won’t only retain soil productivity but it can make farming viable. If farmers will have additional income from their land they will continue to plant rice.”

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