Agriculture Business Week

For over nine years in the food processing business, Crispin Muyrong Jr and his wife Ma. Luz, owners of Sunlight Foods Corporation in Marikina City, have considered ubi as their bread and butter This rootcrop, which is valued for its purple-colored tuber, is a much sought-after ingredient in cakes, pastries, halo-halo, ice cream and other delicacies which make up a big chunk of the local food industry.

Crispin, a mechanical engineer, and Ma. Luz, a food technologist, have seen the big potential of ubi in food processing as they learned that fruit processing makes up 35 percent of the food processing pie followed by bakery products at 25 percent. So, in 2000 they decided to quit their respective jobs and focused on making products that the bakery sector needs.

Crispin noticed that there was an abundant supply of ubi in his home province of La Union, so he took advantage of this and processed the tubers into puree using the processing equipment he himself designed. Besides, he thought that he could help ubi growers in the area earn extra income by encouraging them to sell their produce to him.

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Posted on October 4th, 2010 under Entrepreneurs, Other Crops. Tags: Entrepreneur, Rootcrop, Ubi, Yam. Comments: 17

Not many people may realize it but the orchid business is also creating a lot of jobs, not only for farm workers but also for traders and other entrepreneurs.

Just take the case of Edwin Veneracion and his wife Gina of San Rafael, Bulacan. When they put up their Golden Blooms nursery in 1998, they started with just three helpers and 3,000 dendrobium seedlings.

Twelve years later, they now have 50 workers who are full-time employees.

Their stocks have increased to more than 600,000 dendrobiums of various sizes, and a lesser number of vandas, cattleyas, and oncidiums.

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Posted on February 25th, 2010 under Entrepreneurs, Ornamental. Tags: Entrepreneur, Flowers, Jobs, Orchids. Comments: 1

One successful agribusiness venture that continues to surge is Harbest Agribusiness Corporation owned by our good friend Arsenio ‘Toto’ Barcelona. This company started in 1997 with the introduction into the local market of the hybrid seeds of Known-You Seed Company of Taiwan. Years before, another company tried to introduce the same but the venture did not last long.

It took a very determined Toto Barcelona to make Known-You Seeds become a byword among progressive Filipino farmers. At first, Toto had to contend with the high cost of the hybrid seeds that he was promoting. Many farmers complained that unsprouted seeds of hybrid ampalaya were costing as much as P5 apiece. But that did not discourage Toto to promote Known-You Seeds. He just had to show that by planting hybrid seeds, yield could be multiplied many times and in the end the farmers will make more income.

For a start, he had to buy initial seeds which were first planted in trials at UP Los Baños with the help of Dr. Diosdado Castro, former staff of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC) in Taiwan. As expected, the trials were successful and that gave him confidence to make the business an honest-to-goodness business. He also had to conduct field demonstrations in the provinces.

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Posted on October 22nd, 2009 under Entrepreneurs. Tags: Agribusiness, Entrepreneur, Harbest. Comments: None

HELPING FARMERS
GEM is one of the prime-supporters that provided VICSMin with technical advisory services and it became a pov – erful and effective industry organization representing the interests of vegetable growers in Southern Mindanao. After seeing what GEM had done to accelerate the development of the vegetable industry in Northern Mindanao. through the support ofNorminVeggies. VICSMin- enlisted GEM’s support for its organizational development activities. In 2003, VICSMin became one of the GEM-assisted business support organizations. GEM also provided support to strengthen the capabilities of the organization in working for the development of a competitive vegetable industry in Southern Mindanao.

The success of NorminVeggies and that of the fledgling VICSMin have inspired the creation of similar organizations representing vegetable producers in other areas of Mindanao. Zamboanga’s vegetable producers have recently formed their own industry association, and SOCSARGEN Veggies has been formed to represent the interests of growers in the South Cotabato-Sarangani-General Santos City region. GEM is also providing financial and technical support to newer organizations hoping to replicate the successful NorminVeggies.

Through funding partially provided by GEM, VICSMin now has sufficient fund to sustain its day-to-day operations, to acquire basic office equipment, and to hire an executive director and a technical assistant, who monitor and coordinate various activities initiated or co-implemented by VICSMin. Other GEM institutional-building support came in the form of training VICSMin’s staff on office management, events planning and organizing, preparation of operations manual, generation of financial statements, and formulation of administration policies.

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Posted on May 20th, 2009 under Farming, Vegetables. Tags: Corporate, Entrepreneur, Farmer, Farming, Veggies. Comments: None

Imagine this scene : The president, grinning from ear to ear; adjourned the meeting. He has just announced to the board members that the income gained from hosting a recent event is more than enough to implement the approved annual work plan of the organization.

Perhaps this is a reminiscent of a scene from a meeting held in a posh board room in Makati. But in reality, the gathering was held in a small conference room at the Department of Agriculture in Davao City and the members of the board were not corporate executives but a group of small-scale vegetable farmers.

The only “corporate” link in this group is its president, Roger G. Gualberto, 57, former vice president for marketing of the Phinma Group of Companies, which owned major cement companies in the Philippines in the `80s.

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Posted on May 19th, 2009 under Farming, Vegetables. Tags: Corporate, Entrepreneur, Farmer, Farming, Veggies. Comments: None

An Isabela seed grower shares his back story and insights on how to make a more sellable yield.

Hardwork is no stranger for entrepreneurs like Alfredo Arpagila. Apart from being a farmer in Alicia, Isabela, one of the country’s most well known granaries, Alfredo holds a valuable position at the National Food Authority (NFA) and owns a town hospital, managed by his wife doctor.

The role of a farmer was bestowed to him as far back as he was just in high school, “My parents were residents of Isabela,” he cheerily recalled. “They were farmers, so they taught me everything I know, basically-down from cultivating the soil up to harvesting. I grew up watching them work in the farm with other farmers, so as early as junior high, I already knew my agriculture. And that’s what I did with my children too,” he said.

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Posted on May 1st, 2009 under Entrepreneurs. Tags: Entrepreneur, Isabela, Seeds. Comments: None

The remote barangay of Balaybay in Castillejos, Zambales used to be an unknown place some 10 years ago. Like most far-flung barrios, there was nothing to make it well known. It was a sleepy community where marginal farm families lived. There was no significant economic activity to speak of.

Today, Balaybay has become well known as the source of high-value vegetables that find their way to supermarkets in the Subic free port and in Metro Manila. No less than one to two tons of leafy greens and fruit vegetables are shipped to Manila every day from the 10-hectare farm operated by Johnson Huang, a 43-year-old Taiwanese.

Foreign nationals as well as Filipinos from the Subic industrial zone also frequent the place not only to buy their supply of fresh vegetables but also to sample the fine cooking of Johnson, Taiwanese style. In fact, a number of Manilans and other outsiders also visit Johnson’s Green Healthy Vegetable Farm to observe the farm’s operation. In the supermarkets in Manila and Subic, the vegetables bear the Garden Green brand. They are really fresh because they are delivered by a refrigerated van immediately after cleaning and packing the same.. They are washed with purified water.

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Posted on March 1st, 2009 under Entrepreneurs, Vegetables. Tags: Entrepreneur, Farming, Subic, Veggies, Zambales. Comments: 6

A partner of PhilRice in the implementation of TCP 3, a PhilRice-JICA project on integrated farming systems in Currimao, Ilocos Norte, recently received an award with a hefty cash prize from the Sipag at Tiyaga Foundation, which was founded by Senator Manuel Villar.

We were told that the story was one of the bases of the Foundation’s search committee for choosing Margarita “Margie” Allado. She was one of 16 former overseas Filipinos workers who were recognized as outstanding Filipino micro and small entrepreneurs for their exemplary performance and accomplishments.

Margie, who went to Hong Kong to work as a domestic helper, succeeded in her Palayamanan venture and sari-sari store, which she established at her residence along the national highway going to Manila. Her sarisari store grew into an agricultural store, which now sells animal feeds, farm implements, fertilizers, herbicides, and her own harvest of ampalaya, eggplant, tomato, okra, and pole sitao among others.

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Posted on January 4th, 2009 under Entrepreneurs, Farming, Vegetables. Tags: Entrepreneur, Farming, PhilRice, Veggies. Comments: None

Two graduates of medical technology residing in Padre Garcia, Batangas have become successful farmers with nothing but high praises for the bioorganic fertilizer Durabloom, which is manufactured by Novatech Agri-Foods Industries.

These farmer-innovators took the lead in Batangas in using Durabloom in a large scale on their sugarcane crops, and now vow to use it completely on their crops next year as they expect a big increase in their cane and sugar yields.

Indeed, the sugarcane crops of Oscar A. Tagalicud, 55, and Imelda OlaveLindog, 51, in Brgy. San Felipe have become the envy of many cane planters in Batangas as they now see the luxuriant growth of their crops. Barely five to six months have passed since the crops were applied with Durabloom but their canes have had a diameter of almost 1.5 inches towards the end of last August.

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Posted on January 2nd, 2009 under Entrepreneurs, Farming, Livestock, Ornamental, Poultry. Tags: Anthuriums, Durabloom, Entrepreneur, Farming, Fertilizer, Pigs/Hogs, Poultry. Comments: 1

Many Filipinos working abroad realize when they go home that the success they have been looking for is just right here.

One of them is forty-three-year-old Margie Allado of Brgy. Pias Norte, Currimao, Ilocos Norte. She worked in Hong Kong for two years as a domestic helper. She found out soon after coming back that the money she was looking for is in the farm.

She used the P10,000 that she saved from her salary in Hong Kong to put up a rice and feeds retail store beside her house, which is along the highway. She started with five bags of rice and then gradually increased to 20 bags. Because the store was doing well, her husband got a salary loan from the local electric cooperative where he was working so that she could increase her volume of trade.

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Posted on December 6th, 2008 under Entrepreneurs, Farming. Tags: DH, Domestic Helper, Entrepreneur, Farming, Palamayanan. Comments: 1

He has his own 12 hectares but also rents other people’s farm so he can have year-round production and year-round income too.

Farmers have different strategies in order to succeed in farming. Of course, they usually grow what they know how to produce and which they can sell to the market. But there are other strategies to maximize not only production but, more important profitability. Also important is sustainability.

One person we met lately who has his own unique strategy is Engr. Jaime Tecson of Pacalag, a remote but easily accessible barangay of San Miguel, Bulacan. His strategy is to produce a succession of crops so that he has income flowing in every few days throughout the year. He and his wife Nelia also work as a team. He takes care of production while Nelia takes charge of marketing their harvests. It is a partnership that has been working fine since 1999 when Jaime decided to make farming his fulltime job. Before that, he worked as an engineer of the National Electrification Administration and as manager of a foundation engaged in producing certified rice seeds.

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Posted on November 22nd, 2008 under Entrepreneurs, Farming, Rice. Tags: Entrepreneur, Farming, Rice. Comments: 1