Agriculture Business Week

A project on growing high-value vegetables under contoured sloping areas is being implemented in Brgy. Masunoy and Brgy. Candungaw in San Isidro, Bohol.

This is a joint project of the local government (LGU) of San Isidro, the Bureau of Soils and Water Management, East-West Seed Company and the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

According to Daisy Monreal, technology transfer technologist of East-West Seed Company, they will showcase the improved techniques of growing high-value vegetables in sloping fields that are contoured to prevent erosion of the soil.

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An enterprising 50-year-old agricultural engineer has put up Bohol ’s first mango processing plant in his hometown of Tubigon. He is Cecilio “Dodie ” Itable, a Manila-bused engineering contractor, who had wanted to engage in farming and agribusiness not just for the money but also to break the hassles of doing business in the city.

In 2007, Dodie and his brothers and his sisters organized the Itable Agri-Industrial Corporation not only to engage in mango processing but also to develop a 45-hectare property near the processing plant into a mango plantation and agrotourism destination. He and wife Lorna own 85 percent of the corporation.

At the recent national mango congress in Tagbilaran City, Dodie’s Ecomatci brand of dried mango and mango juice were among the bestsellers. The brand name was derived from the first letters of the names of the brothers and sisters. Besides the traditional slices of dried mango, he has introduced a chocolatecoated version which is probably the first of its kind in the Philippines. The idea was suggested to him by a Norwegian friend. Customers who have tasted this new product, like our friend Sandy Itchon, love the chocolate-coated mango strips.

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MONEY FROM MILK
In Brgy. Tubog, Saturnino “Satur” Dilao, 60, also made money from the milk of the pregnant Bulgarian Murrah buffalo, which he loaned in 1998. He said that his income from buffalo milk also helped him a lot in the college education of his children.

He recalled that it was very tiresome for him in the first year, as he and the other recipients had to bring cut grasses and other forage feeds for the buffalo to a common feedlot twice a day. All the buffalos then were in a common feedlot where they were being tamed. The feedlot was about a kilometer away from most of the houses in Tubog.

Satur’s first calf was born two months after the arrival of the dam. He gave the calf, a female, to the PCC after 18 months as his first payment. In a year, he collected 893 liters of milk worth P 15,383.

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Farmers in Ubay, Bohol consider themselves lucky as the pregnant dairy buffalos loaned out to them in 1998 by the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) at Ubay Stock Farm (USF) have already given lots of benefits, which could not have been possible from other endeavors.

What’s more, the female buffalos have already multiplied, giving the farmers more milk to collect and more hope to have a better life. After tasting the benefits from the dairy buffalo, the farmers would keep their female calves for more benefits.

True enough, the buffalos delivered their first calves a few months after the members of the Ubay Dairy MultiPurpose Cooperative (UDAMCO) got them. And sooner than the members thought, they were already collecting milk that gave them additional income.

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By adopting appropriate farm technologies, a farmer from Bohol has turned an unfavorable rainfed ricefield into a profitable farm.

He is Sergio “Serie” Isulat of Mandaug, Calape, Bohol. Unlike most farmers in their community who are traditional in their farming, this 59-year-old farmer is open to changes. Hence, from a gross harvest of 80 cavans a hectare (ha), he now harvests around 140 cavans and earns as much as P240,000 from vegetables in a season. This is because he has earned P80,000 from 0.25 ha he planted to eggplant and P160,000 from 0.5 ha he planted to ampalaya. But that’s not all. He also has earned P120,000 from the 1 ha he planted to squash the next season.

His success started in 2004 when he was chosen to promote to his fellow farmers the different rice farming technologies for rainfed farms, beginning with the Palayamanan. It’s a farming system from PhilRice in which vegetables and fruits production, animal raising, and recycling of farm materials are integrated with rice farming for increased farm income and food security.

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For decades, Bucarez Food Processing Corporation has been promoting the enchanting province of Bohol by way of these peanut candy delicacies shaped like miniature Chocolate Hills.

Foreign and local tourists alike visit the world famous Bohol province for various reasons-from the grand wonder of the Chocolate Hills to the experience of coddling the smallest primate in the world, the tarsier. But amongst so many things you spot in Bohol, there’s surely one thing you could, that the Boholanos gratefully allow you to bring home, the Peanut Kisses.

True enough that Bohol is never short of natural wonders. What better way to capture Bohol’s beauty than the edible and tasty replicas of its famous Chocolate Hills which you can easily slip into your pasalubong bags.

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Danajon Reef is one of the world’s few double barrier reefs located in the Central Visa vas near Bohol. Of its estimated 20, 000 hectares, about 2.0 percent or 4, 000 hectares produce over 40,000 tons of fresh cultured seaweeds worth P180 to 200 million yearly.

When the seaweed farming industry started in the country in 1974, Danajon Reef is one of the three locations where experimental field trials were conducted. The other two are in the coastal waters of Calatagan, Batangas and Tawi-Tawi in Mindanao.

Marine Colloid Seaweed of the Philippines, Inc. (MCPI), one of the country’s major players in the seaweed industry, started operating in 1986 by establishing a farmhouse in Danajon Reef. “The [farmhouse] cost $60,000 then. It serves as a station for the living quarters of our staff and as a seaweed buying and processing facility,” MCPI President Maximo Ricohermoso said.

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Like in other Philippine Carabao Centers(PCCI), introducing dairying in Bohol was also difficult. However, PCC at Ubay Stock Farm(USF) approached this ambitious project in two prongs” dairy institutional development and farmer dairy module.

Dr. Caro Salces, chief of the PCC at Ubay Stock Farm, said the institutional dairy production approach started in January 1996. To start the project, newly calved American Murrah buffalos were selected based on their potential as dairy animals. Among the criteria are body conformation and formation and size of the teats.

Fifteen head were selected, haltered and confined. Ten of the 15 buffalos were trained on milk collection, and milk collection started on March 1, 1996 with only one milk collection a day. A temporary milking parlor was also constructed.

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