Agriculture Business Week

Flood is one big problem of rice farmers in Barangay Papaya in San Antonio, Nueva Ecija. The place is low-lying so when it rains heavily ricefields here are submerged for more than a week, with water depth reaching 1.5 meters.

Like other farmers in the community, 74-year-old Aquilino Sicat and his son Mario have tried flood-tolerant rice. But of all the varieties he and Mario have planted in the 2008 wet season, says Aquilino, only PSB Rc68 rice survived.

According to Dr. Nenita V. Desamero, plant breeder at the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), this is because PSB Rc68 is tolerant to abiotic stresses, particularly drought and submergence. So it is no wonder that Aquilino’s crop survived after being submerged twice in 1-meter water depth for a week.
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Rice farmers can earn extra money by doing fish-farming in their ricefields.

Instead of fishing in rivers, they may opt to convert the lower portion of their ricefields into fishponds like what a farmer in Alicia, Isabela did.

Roberto Navarro of Barangay Paddad does this so-called rice-fish technology by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR). He says that profit from his 1,700 square meter tilapia fishpond that used to be a mud pit is equivalent to an income from a 7,000 sq. m. rice land.

That’s because the stocks of this rice-fish technology demonstration cooperator of the BFAR Region II have reached 4 to 3 pieces a kilo. In fact some have weighed even half a kilo. At an average harvest weight of 250 grams, potential production is 1,806.25 kilos. This is worth a net income of P74,232 at A farmgate price of P70 per kilo.

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According  to Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa),  El Niño, a weather phenomenon characterized by dry spells, may peak in February.   Sunstar Davao (28 december 2009) reported  that Davao City and the provinces of Davao Region have been categorized as moderately vulnerable to the El Niño phenomenon alongside with the provinces of Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Mt Province, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, Batangas, Laguna, Quezon, Romblon, Sorsogon, Aklan, Antique, Bohol, Samar, Zamboanga Norte, Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga Sur, and Bukidnon. The Center for Initiative and Research on Climate Adaptation (Circa) explained that the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (Eenso) is a recurrent ocean-warming and atmospheric disturbance resulting in deficient rainfall or prolonged drought.  This phenomenon is expected to adversely affect crop production.

Drought is a major limiting factor in farming.  Limited moisture suppresses the growth of crops, weakens the resistance  to pests and diseases, affects nutrient utilization and usually decreases the quality and quantity of yield.  Drought can cause damage to cell membranes.  Not all plants develop antioxidant defense systems to cope with  drought such that application of natural plant supplements that enhances resistance to drought maybe necessary during drought.   Cytokinins, a class of phytohormones, function as antioxidants and have been shown to improve drought resistance and exhibit anti-senescence properties  Musgrave,1994. Thimann (1987) noted that cytokinins delay the senescence process probably by maintaining the integrity of the tonoplast membrane.  Tonoplast membrane is the cytoplasmic membrane surrounding the vacuole, separating the vacuolar contents from the cytoplasm in a cell.  As a membrane, it is mainly involved in regulating the movements of ions around the cell, and isolating materials that might be harmful or a threat to the cell (www.biology-online.org/dictionary)

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He is a busy operator of a technical education institution with 12 branches in Metro Manila and in the provinces. You would think he has no time for farming but because he grew up in a farm, he could not help but do his own brand of farming, and not just hobby farming at that.

The fellow is Constancio Sia, a 77 year-old native of Valencia, Negros Oriental. A certified public accountant, he worked for five years in a well known accounting firm before he went on his own to start Asian College of Science and Technology which offered at first vocational courses. Today the school offers IT, electronics and nursing courses.

In 2001, after gracing so many sessions of the Agri-Kapihan, and attending seminars and agricultural trade shows like Agrilink, he decided to develop a five-hectare property near the poblacion of his hometown which he bought for P2 per square meter from a retired parish priest in 1960. Now the going price for an undeveloped property in the area is P1,500 per square meter but he would not sell his property at that price now because it is already full of bearing exotic fruit trees.

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We were just talking a few minutes ago over lunch with a lady who consulted us on how to go about developing her dream farm a year ago. She is a daughter of a former mayor who left behind several hectares of upland farms that have not been made productive for so many years. In one farm, a 7-hectare property that was willed to her, there’s a caretaker who has been doing nothing productive except to harvest the nuts of the few coconut trees that have been planted many years ago.

The lady is a highly educated professional who until lately was doing a lucrative consultancy work in Europe, China and elsewhere. Apparently, she has accumulated a sizeable nest egg, and probably felt that in this life there are more important things than just making money. She gave up her consulting job so she could develop her dream farm and in the process contribute her share in developing the community.

When we first met, we suggested that she consider growing high-value vegetables. Which she liked very much for a number of good reasons. Vegetables have a short gestation period and they could be grown year-round with the use of the latest technologies.

We suggested to her then that she visit as many vegetable farms as possible. And more important, she should attend trainings in vegetable culture. Which she did, not just once but twice. She attended the training course of Harbest Agribusiness in Cavite, and then the off-season course in vegetable production by East-West Seed.
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Now that El Niño is here with us, what are the crops that we should plant? Of course, this is an unusual El Niño because in some places there are sporadic light rains. Nevertheless, our weather experts tell us that the El Niño will probably last up to June.

Of course don’t be intimidated into not planting anything at all because of the phenomenon. It should be a challenge for us to be creative whether we are planting just for our own use or for commercial purposes.

Of course we should plant crops that don’t require a lot of water. One of them is Kadios or pigeon pea which is a very hardy plant because it develops a deep root system. There are a number of varieties that were introduced from India. They grow tall and are perennial so they remain productive for a number of years for as long as they are fertilized once in a while. To keep the plants low-growing, they could be topped about a meter above the ground after fruiting.

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Learning is said to be the key to almost everything, and this seems to be true also in farming.

Farmers who joined the Technical Cooperation Project 4 (TCP4) in Mindanao attest this. With the new farm technologies they learned in this technology transfer project, they were able to increase the productivity and profitability of their small farms.

One notable farmer who participated in this project of ARMM, PhilRice, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries-ARMM, and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is Kalim Lamug of Brar, Maguindanao.

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Rice farmers in Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Pangasinan and Pampanga whose newly-harvested rice crops were damaged by Typhoon “Ondoy” are reaping the benefits of the flat bed dryers distributed to them through irrigators associations by the Bureau of Post-harvest Research and Extension (BPRE), which is attached to the Department of Agriculture (DA).

According to BPRE, 335 units of flat bed dryers were distributed to irrigators associations in Region 1 and Region IV-B. These dryers can dry a volume of 6,080 tons of wet palay daily. A total of 1,188 units of the drying machines have already been installed in practically all producing regions of the country, the BPRE said.

It said in Nueva Ecija alone, a total of 88 units of flat bed dryers were distributed to rice farmers.

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Davao City – International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group has been showing Davao agribusiness leaders how Rainforest Alliance certification can benefit the entire supply chain, including big companies, small farming communities, regulators, and consumers.

The internationally recognized certification of sustainable farming practices gives qualifying farms the right to use the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal, which guarantees consumers that the farms take good care of their workers, communities, and the environment. Certification reduces costs and increases savings for producers by assuring efficient, effective, and environment-friendly farm practices.

“Whether reforesting old farmland, building schools and medical facilities, or providing farm workers with just wages, the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal indicates sustainable practices and a sustainable future,” said Sabrina Vigilante, Rainforest Alliance’s chief of marketing.

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Organic farming is a vibrant commercial agricultural system practiced in 120 countries, covering 31 million hectares of cultivated lands and an additional 62 million hectares of certified, wild harvested areas. In 2006, the organic market was worth US$40 billion and it is expected to reach US$70 million by 2012.

Professor Ivette Perfecto, a researcher from the University of Michigan, believes that organic farming can feed the world’s growing population. She said the idea that people would go hungry if farming went organic is “ridiculous.”

She pointed out: “Corporate interest in agriculture and the way agriculture research has been conducted in land grant institutions, with a lot of influence by the chemical companies and pesticide companies as well as fertilizer companies – all have been playing an important role in convincing the public that you need to have these inputs to produce food.”

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It is not unusual when a farmer from Luzon or from Visayas relocates to Mindano for good. What is quite unusual is when a Mindanaoan goes to Luzon and settles there to do his brand of farming.

That’s exactly the case of Jose Paquibongan, an agriculturist born in Bohol but who stayed in Mindanao for several years after graduating from college. Mindoro farmers he has been helping consider him a Mindanaoan rather than a Boholano. Joe finished an agriculture course at the Bohol State College in Bilar in 1984. Immediately after graduation, he went to Mati, Davao Oriental, to help a relative manage a diversified farm where they had coconut, coffee, cacao, guava and farm animals like hogs and goats.

For a number of years, he also worked as rice technician of the Farm Systems Development Corporation in Tagum, Davao del Norte. That was a government agency which was dissolved after President Corazon Aquino took over the helm of the government.

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UPLB-NEDA’s agri project Enhancing Production and Profitability of Market Oriented Organic Vegetables in CALABARZON’ is giving farmers their second wind.

Back in 2005, the authorization of Executive Order 481 titled “Promotion and Development of Organic Agriculture in the Philippines” further fortified the need for an information system for organic agriculture. Signed last August 2006, the rules and regulations specified that the secretariat of the National Technical Committee and the National Organic Agriculture Board, is lodged with the Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Product Standards.

Organic farming in the country has also improved since the demand for organic produce has skyrocketed for the past few years. Thanks to different organic markets in the Metro and bagsakan centers in rural areas that now promote and give organic farmers a chance to sell their products.

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Dr. Romulo G. Davide can truly take pride in his formula for making farming more profitable. He quips that the Farmer Scientists Training Program that he started in 1994 “forces the farmers to become rich.”

He is not, of course, bragging. The fact is that it is now hard to count the thousands of beneficiaries of his program who have attained economic independence, thanks to FSTP. The program has taught the farmers how to produce higher yields not only from their corn crops but also from various vegetables, root crops and farm animals that they have been taught to integrate in their corn farming.

One proof that the FSTP has been a rousing success is the fact that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has issued late last year an Administrative Order which mandates the adoption of the program in various parts of the country.

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Farmers from the Visavas are fortunate because they have a UP Los Banos professor by the name of Dr Romulo G. Davide who grew tip in Colawin, a barrio that used to be a very depressed barangay in Argao, Cebu. In 1994, Dr Davide received a prize of  P500,000 for having been that year’s Outstanding Agricultural Scientist under the Gawad Saka project o f the Department of Agriculture.

With the amount, he decided to launch a project that is aimed at turning ordinary farmers into scientists so they can improve their farming techniques. He launched the. Farmer-Scientists Training Program (FSTP) with helping the poor corn farmers from his province uppermost in his mind.

He had observed that in his own hometown, the farmers were very poor because they were using very crude farming methods. They were mostly planting the old Tinigib variety of white corn which yielded just about 500 kilos per hectare. Besides the low yielding variety that they planted, the poor soil that barely had topsoil contributed to the low yield. Thus, they could not even produce enough white corn for their own consumption.

Because of the low income of farm families, Dr. Davide said, there was rampant insurgency and a serious drug problem. Ownership of paltik, the illegally manufactured gun for which Cebu is famous, was the status symbol among the menfolk.

Today, however, Argao has become s progressive town, thanks to a large measure to the FSTP started by Dr. Davide some 15 years ago. Cellphones have replaced the paltik as the prized possession of the menfolk. Motorcycles have also become a common sight as a means of transportation even in the most remote barangays of the town. Up to now, training of more farmers to become scientists continues in Argao, and in fact, it has covered the entire province of Cebu and beyond. The FSTP has also been adopted in Bohol, Siquijor, Negros Oriental, Leyte, Mindoro and Compostela Valley in Mindanao.

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