Agriculture Business Week

Dr. Rolando T. Dy’s jewel of a book intelligently connects the dots and explains how the food that lands in our dining tables is intricately linked to countless farms all over the world.

Dr. Rolando T. Dy has spent more than 30 years of his life writing papers and giving lectures on agribusiness development in different parts of the world. As a consultant for various international and local organizations, he has keenly observed how agribusiness has evolved and affected the lives of peoples in the planet. Just when one thinks that with all his achievements, there is probably nothing else that he has done to further enhance his scholarly pursuits, the agribusiness expert, who humbly describes himself as the barrio boy from Davao, has surprised his followers by writing his first book.

Launched last December 8, 2009 at the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) where he is concurrently the Executive Director of the Center for Food and Agribusiness, Dr. Dy presented to the members of the academic and business communities his latest achievement: a new book entitled “Food for Thought/ How Agribusiness is Feeding the World (With Special Focus on the ASEAN).” Published by UA&P in cooperation with the Comprehensive Initiative for the Trans-forma-tion of Organizations (CITO) Foundation, the book, all of 258 pages, has been described as “first of its kind that takes a broad look at agribusiness and reveals the extent of the sector’s global reach and significance.”

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Posted on June 8th, 2010 under Special Report. Tags: Book, Book Review. Comments: 8

Arthur Yap’s “The Art of Agribusiness” is a beehive of engaging stories about people who surmounted the odds.

Through the years that we’ve been working and mingling with people in agribusiness, entrepreneurship has always been viewed as a seemingly far-fetched, unattainable concept. We’ve always heard people say, “yes we want to be entrepreneurs, but we just don’t have the business knack.” Or “we don’t have the capital” and the oft repeated phrase: “it’s too risky.” And while we listen to these doubtful and fearful voices, we can’t help but wonder: maybe entrepreneurship sounds too esoteric and academic, that’s why it hasn’t gained that much following.

The dictionary defines an entrepreneur as “a person who organizes and manages an enterprise, especially a business usually with considerable initiative and risk.” The operative words are clear: organize, manage, initiative and risk. This means being an entrepreneur is not manna from heaven but is something that someone works on diligently—usually from scratch. And while a business degree or an MBA from reputable schools can definitely help in pursuing a career in entrepreneurship, our experiences tell us that it is not a guarantee for success, as we have seen countless men and women who never went to school but relied on large doses of common sense, street-smart attitude, networking and guts to succeed in their entrepreneurial endeavors.

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Posted on May 4th, 2010 under Entrepreneurs, SPOTlight. Tags: Agribusiness, Arthur Yap, Book. Comments: 3

Religious and Filipiniana publishing house New Day Publishers recently launched a book on upland ecosystem to educate Filipinos on its importance in maintaining the earth’s fragile ecological balance.

Basic Upland Ecology by Protestant pastor Delbert Rice explains in simple but accurate terms the concepts of ecology, its common problems and solutions, and challenges in upland forest management.

In the 32-chapter, 167-page book, the author shares his knowledge and experiences on the upland forest management of the Kalahari Forest Sanctuary in Imugan, Nueva Vizcaya. The Ikalahan Tribe, of which Rice is a respected leader, is one of the first to be awarded with a community forest management agreement by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

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Posted on February 15th, 2009 under SPOTlight. Tags: Book, Upland Economy. Comments: None