Agriculture Business Week

A two-year old coffee tree nursery is set to share Nescafe technology to farmers in Sultan Kudarat, the leading coffee producing province in the country.

D and R Farms, owned by Dr. Dante Eugenio and managed by Edgar Eugenio, is scheduled to harvest some 200,000 rooted cuttings of Robusta coffee from which Nescafe, the country’s leading instant coffee brand is made. Edgar, a retired pharmaceutical executive is a graduate of coffee specialist course at the Nestle Experimental and Demonstration Farm (NEDF) in Tagum, Davao del Norte.

“We are excited about the renewed interest of farmers in coffee,” Says Edgar. “In Kalamansig alone, our starting order last year was for 50,000 seedlings.”

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Henry Ballesteros was reviewing for the board exam when he was asked by his friend to attend some seminars on rice production. But his interest in it got deeper that he decided to go back to Isabela to become a seed grower. Well, it seems that he has made a very good decsion because today he is one of the successful seed growers in Isabela.

A graduate of Technological University of the Philippines, Henry hosts experiments by the Department of Agriculture (DA) and private companies in his farm in San Andres, Aurora, Isabela. One of these was the Farmer-led Extension Program of DA in 2008 in which he was a Palay Check cooperator of.

He also holds farmers’ field day so other farmers can take a look at his farm, and attends seminars on rice production. So from these he sees which technologies really work. In fact he has practically Tried most of the technologies demonstrated in his farm.

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The extension directorate of the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) has very good reasons to be happy these days. It was the first to receive the Commission on Higher Education Outstanding Extension Program Award last December 2008, which may very well be considered the most prestigious laurel on its cap.

Dr. Miriam E. Pascua, MMSU president, said the award is a great honor as it is now recognized at the national level that its seed stock dispersal program is the best extension program in the country. The award carried with it a cash prize of P1 million and a trophy.

Dr. Pascua said the seed stock dispersal program is one of the flagship and banner programs of the MMSU Extension Directorate. “It presents a distinct model of sustainable-based development through an established assistance mechanism involving the coordinated efforts and complementation of resources by the academe, research and development agencies, local government units, farmer cooperators, and, marketing outfits.”

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