Ex-tuba Gatherer Makes Big in Cornmilling and Farming
From 1958 to 1967, 66-year-old Ponciano “Cian” Nob worked as a tuba gatherer and earned P2 for every can of tuba he gathered. He usually gathered two cans of tuba a day and, hence, earned P4 a day or a total of P120 a month. Although it was not big, his income enabled him to provide the basic needs of a growing family.
Sensing that tuba gathering would not be able to provide well for his children, Cian put up a sari-sari store along the highway in El Salvador with an initial capital of P300 in 1967. While his wife, Hipolita, attended to the store, he later engaged in hog and cattle buying. He went around the neighboring towns like Naawan, Manticao and Lugait and brought the animals to Cagayan de Oro City using a service jeep.
With his savings from livestock marketing, he shifted to corn trading for the production of corn grits in 1980 even as he was renting a cornmill at P0.30 per kilo of corn grains.
Bright prospects snowballed year after year until Cian decided to put up his own cornmill in 1986. He got a loan of P80,000 and mortgaged his coconut land.
“At that time, one could already put up a cornmill if he had P300,000,” Cian recalls.
Even if the payment for milling corn grits was only P0.50 a kilo at that time, Cian must have been earning much as he continued to put additional mills every year until 1989. Most of the time he was milling white corn bought from Bukidnon, Lanao and Cagayan de Oro. Sometimes middlemen delivered to him at El Salvador and since he no longer had to exert extra effort and spend for gasoline, he increased the buying price by a few centavos. Cian also milled yellow corn, mostly hybrids, when the price was lower than white corn.
Today, he already has five mills in El Salvador with a total milling capacity of 30,000 kilos a day. The fifth mill was put up in 1992, but the mills are now being managed by his two oldest children who are graduates of nursing and commerce.
SHIFTS TO FARMING
In 1998, Cian and his wife moved over to Bukidnon to start farming even if they already have 40 hectares of coconut plantation in El Salvador. They started with 3,700 square meters in Impasugong, Bukidnon, which they planted to corn. Eventually, the farm area increased to 10 hectares and now, it is 100 hectares and planted to corn and sugarcane. They also bought additional 6 hectares in Valencia, Bukidnon and they planted it to lowland rice.
Cian confesses that although the first corn variety he planted in 1998 was produced by Bioseed Research Philippines, he later stopped planting Bioseed varieties because of lucrative incentives offered by other seed companies.
He observed, however, that while the yield of a particular variety he was using was high, it could not qualify as first class because the kernels develop some dark spots when dried. Another variety yields as high as 9 tons a hectare with first class kernels, but its cobs are not uniform.
Last year, he finally decided to use Bioseed varieties again and used Bioseed 9909, Bioseed 9900 and Bioseed 9888. He likes Bioseed 9909 best as he harvested about 10 tons a hectare in cobs.
Bioseed 9888 yielded almost as much but about 10 percent had a minor defect. On the other hand, Cian harvested 9 tons a hectare from Bioseed 9900.
He said all Bioseed varieties have uniform cobs from the base to the tip. An ear would produce more and heavier grains with uniform cobs than if the ear has a pointed tip, he said.
Cian likes Bioseed 9909 best because the ears are bigger than Bioseed 9900. On the average, three ears could weigh a kilo, and some plants even produce double ears especially at a wider distance of planting or at lower population density. He also said that Bioseed 9909 is resistant to ear rot and neck rot, two serious corn diseases.
Furthermore, the shelling recovery of Bioseed 9909 is high, especially when harvested at the right time. When harvested at 110 to 120 days after planting, the shelling recovery is as high as 70 percent. However, this goes down to 65 percent if the ears are not fully matured.
In his second crop, he planted 40 hectares to Bioseed 9909, which matures in 110 days after planting under Impasugong condition (440 meters above sea level). Although the total cost of the seeds was P104,000, this was charged to his crop, meaning he would pay only after selling his harvest.
Cian says he has no problem in drying his corn harvest because he has a mechanical dryer that uses dried corncobs as source of heat for drying. This means that he practically does not spend anything for fuel because the source of heat is a byproduct of his farm operation. The dryer can dry 8,000 kg of corn in cobs into Class A corn in 12 hours, and about 40 bags of dried corncobs are used as fuel for every batch of drying.
He sells his corn harvest both in cobs and shelled. The latest selling price before we interviewed him in mid-February was P5.50 per kilo for corn in cobs and P11.40 per kilo for shelled corn. A few days before our visit he sold 27,00 kilos of shelled corn for a total of P307,800. And there were still much more to be harvested.
Harvesting of his sugarcane was also in progress. He said the cane yield could reach 70 to 80 tons a hectare when the crop is newly planted. The sugar yield or PS/TC (picul sugar per ton of cane) ranges from 1.33 to 1.7 even as the canes come from the same area.
