Agriculture Business Week

When one was raised in a farm, chances are, one will venture into farming after retiring. That’s why one prepares for this by buying farmland while still in service.

Such is the case of Judge Osmundo Villanueva who retired as a Regional Trial Court judge in Sultan Kudarat in 2005 after 35 years on the bench. He was still a young boy when his family migrated to Mindanao from Tarlac in search of the proverbial pot of gold in March 1949. The pot of gold, however, was nowhere in sight and his father ended up as a tenant of a big landlord in Esperanza, Sultan Kudarat.

Judge Villanueva was in Grade IV when his family arrived in Tacurong. “The world became different to me because I was mixed with other pupils speaking different dialects, which is why I speak Bisaya, Ilonggo, Maranaw, Ilocano, Tagalog, Pangasinense, and Capampangan fluently among several others,” he said.

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Posted on January 4th, 2009 under Corn/Maize, Farming, Rice. Tags: Corn, Farming, Rice. Comments: None

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: None

Farmers in Ilocos Norte normally have small farms, 0.75 hectare (ha) on the average. Seldom are there farmers with more than 3 ha. But for hard working farmers, farm size is not of a constraint to successful farming even under the semi-arid conditions of the Ilocos provinces.

Compared to most farmers, Onofre Balantac of Barangay Sulongan, Pasuquin and Honorio dela Cruz of Barangay San Guillermo, San Nicolas are relatively young at 38 years old. However, both of them are already classic examples of the many farmers in Ilocos Norte who derive a satisfactory income from their small farms. This is because Onofre and Honorio are innovators. They always seek for new information and technologies that can help improve their farm productivity and income.

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Posted on January 1st, 2009 under Farming, Rice. Tags: Entrepreneurs, Farmer, Farming, Garlic, Rice. Comments: None

In many low-lying areas in San Antonio, Nueva Ecija, rice farms are not cultivated during the wet season because of flood water from neighboring towns and provinces normally come together in these areas. In many instances floodwater is at least a meter high for no less than a week and hence, transplanted seedlings are already rotten when the water subsides.

Among the town’s 16 barangays, 7 have been identified by a team of Filipino researchers as low-lying areas, which serve as catch basin of neighboring municipalities, Tarlac, Pampanga, and Zambales during the wet season. Water depth reaches 1.5 meters, thereby making farmers despondent in producing rice.

Farmers stubbornly plant rice in these areas, hoping against hope that their crop would survive possible flood. In some instances, their crops barely survive floodwater and their yields are low as they are still to find a variety that may be able to survive submergence.
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Posted on December 31st, 2008 under Farming. Tags: Farm, Farming, Low-Lying Farms. Comments: None

Valfrie “Val” Tabian, now a senior police superintendent, equivalent to lieutenant colonel in the Army. We visited his farm in Tuao, Cagayan last August and we noticed that much have changed. This means that this police o cer is now well entrenched into farming, thereby ensuring him a comfortable retirement 11 years from now when he turns 55.

Val cultivates a bigger farm; in 2005, he only had 10.7 hectares (ha) and now he owns 37 ha. This is because he has used much of his farm income in mortgaging lands near his farm at P50,000 to P80,000 a hectare. He also bought a few hectares.

Aside from buying lands, he has built infrastructures in his farm. His farm shed is now a concrete structure with a dining area, kitchen, toilet, and bathroom. Even at a distance, one can already notice his warehouse with a capacity of 800 bags.
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Posted on December 29th, 2008 under Entrepreneurs, Farming, Organic. Tags: Durabloom, Entrepreneurs, Farming, Fertilizer. Comments: None

Being late does not necessarily mean that you’ll surely be outdone by those who started on time. A 76-year-old farmer in Agbannawag has proven this true when he have had the highest and second highest yields in two season of technical cooperation project(TCP 3) of PhilRice and Japan International Cooperation Agency in Rizal, Nueva Ecija.

Although he joined the TCP 31ate, Martin Perez of Purok Kaunlaran, Agbannawag was one of the six participating farmers who produced at least 10 t/ha in the 2006 dry season.

Aside from being a latecomer, Mang Martin has attended only 17 of the 22 sessions of the farmers’ field school (FFS) in the 2006 wet season. No wonder why he only got 78 percent (39 out of 50 questions) in the post-test at the end of the FFS.

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Posted on December 7th, 2008 under Farming, Rice. Tags: Farming, PhilRice, Rice. Comments: 1

Wearing a frayed sweatshirt and maong pants, Datu Saripin “Karim” Maccalaidos is easily mistaken as an average vegetable grower or trader: At first glance, no one would think that this young man came from a royal lineage.

“I’m actually a Datu, but I would like to be known more as a farmer,” says the soft-spoken Datu Karim. But for the residents of Barangay Lumakil in Polomolok, South Cotabato, he is looked upon as the “anointed one” and the successor to his late father Datu Ishmael, who was a well-respected elder in the community.

When his father passed away in 2001, the young Karim faced the daunting challenge of being the leader for his father, brothers, and cousins were members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

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Posted on December 6th, 2008 under Farming, Vegetables. Tags: Datu, Farming, Vegetables. Comments: None

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: None