Agriculture Business Week

It is hard for me to believe that I am in my old age, yet this is the reality. I had been in government service for 38 years, and I had expected that when I retired, I would be happy travelling or having a brand new car What happened was the opposite.

Four months before I officially retired, I experienced a short of breath. My heartbeat and pulse rate were so low that I was rushed to the hospital. The worse was that I underwent a heart operation so I was forced to retire early.

My operation was successful. The sad thing was that most of my retirement benefit was used to pay my hospital bill and loans. Anyway, what’s more important and I should be thankful for is that I am still alive. And now, I have all the time for farming, which I have been into for years.

I started farming 26 years ago. Put this differently, I prepared for my retirement long before I retired.

First, I planted a hectare (ha) to Tacunan coconut, a high-yielding variety that fruits in 3-4 years after. planting. Then I planted 1.5 ha to mango varieties carabao, Florida, and Spanish. I also planted my 2,000-square meter yard to fruit trees like durian and rambutan; seedlings of mango, marcotted lemon, tambis, Magallanes pummelo, atis, marang, and papaya; and vegetables. I established 3 ha of irrigated ricefield, too.

Recently, I intercropped coconuts with lakatan and saba banana, solo papaya, pineapple, guava, lemon, lemonsito, ginger, vegetables, and rootcrops. One rootcrop I am growing is purple yam or ubi, and it thrives onto the 166-meter fence. It has produced 381 kilos of roots, which I sold at P4-P5 per kilo last December 2008.

With the coconuts, at first I used to process 2,000-2,800 nuts every two and a half months into copra. But when coconut farmers learned of the good characteristics of Tacunan, they wanted to propagate it so I thought of selling seedlings at P10 each. Since the demand increased as more and more fanners are becoming interested in it, I sold seedlings with the height of 1-2 feet at P-25 each. I recommend a planting distance of 7m x 8m because Tacunan has drooping fronds.

I wanted to be a coconut seedling supplier for the government’s coconut replanting program, but I cannot meet the demand. But so far, I have supplied more than 14,000 seedlings to nearby areas, including North Cotabato.

The challenge for me was with mango production. My first cropping was not successful. Good thing that I did not allow myself to be discouraged by what happened as my second crop yielded 7 tons. And as of press time, my mango trees have fruited again and it seems that I would have a better harvest.

As for my lakatan, Saba and papaya crops, I sell these at P15-P18 per kilo, P4-P5 per kilo, and P8-P9 per kilo, respectively.

In rice farming, I chose to plant the Mestizo 1 variety as it yields well. My crop, for instance, yields an average of 145 cavans per hectare per season.

I would like to venture into seed production, too as it is profitable. In fact. I’m having my farm caretaker trained in AxR and inbred seed production for this purpose.

These are the reasons why today, two years after I retired, I am enjoying life in a different light. I am happily spending my old age fanning for it increases my sense of well-being. In fact, my friends said that it seems that I am much happier than before, and they are absolutely right. This is how simple I am.

My advice to those who are planning to farm when they retire is to start fanning now. So whatever happens, at least they would have a source of livelihood that would tide them over through their old age.

By Leon C. Villacarlos