Agriculture Business Week

Would you believe when we tell you that one man is operating a 250-hectare watermelon farm? Not in the Philppines, you will probably say. But he is right here in the Philippines. In Brgy. Pando, Concepcion, Tarlac, to be exact. He is Wu Yulien, a Taiwanese, who is renting that 250 hectares from the 6,000-hcctare Hacienda Luisita. He grows nothing but watermelons, mainly for export.

When we interviewed him a few weeks back, he has been shipping to Taiwan 24 tons a day, six times a week. That’s 144 tons weekly of the Factor variety. This is a new variety from Known-You Seed which produces fruits that are 15 to 20 kilos each. This variety has been planted on several hectares of the rented farm and harvesting of this variety could last for one month. Other portions of the rented land are planted to other varieties on a staggered basis so that harvesting for the Taiwan market is continuous.

How can one man operate such a big area? Well, he knows his watermelon business from A to Z. He practically lives right on the farm to have a hands-on operation. A number of Taiwanese investors have also tried to get into the same business but many of them have become bankrupt, according to him. That’s because they did not have the right know-how in production, management and marketing.

Wu’s advantage is that his family has been in the business of breeding watermelon in Taiwan for a long time. That’s why he knows the requirements of the varieties that he is planting. The fact is that Mr. Wu has been successfully producing watermelons in the Philippines during the last 18 years. He now speaks Tagalog and knows how to handle his workers. He has set up his system of management.

He is fully mechanized in his operation. He has four big tractors to do land preparation. He also uses underground irrigation system that provides the needed moisture to his plants economically. He uses what is called Perforain plastic tubes which are buried along the rows of the plants. The plants are watered and fertilized simply by opening a valve.

There are 30 deep-wells distributed in various parts of the farm. To do the different chores in the 250-hectare plantation are 85 Filipino workers. One of the major chores of the workers is to train the vines so they are oriented to the right direction. Another daily chore is to remove the unwanted fruits. In the case of the Factor watermelon, for instance, only one fruit should be retained per vine. This is to ensure that the fruits will be big. If two or more fruits are allowed to develop, the fruits will be much smaller.

After thorough plowing, the planting beds are mulched with plastic. This prevents the weeds from growing. It also helps conserve moisture and the fruits are cleaner because soil particles are not splashed on them.

When the fruits have developed, dry rice straw is placed on top to prevent sunscald. That’s also one of the major chores on the farm.

A lot of chicken and cow manure are incorporated in the soil during land preparation. The organic fertilizer as well as the chemical fertilizer delivered through the irrigation water make the plants robust and productive. Close monitoring on insect pests and diseases is also done.

You might ask, why can’t Filipino investors get into watermelon production in the scale that Wu Yulien is undertaking?

The obvious answer is the lack of the right know-how and the capital requirements. While there are also experienced Filipino growers, they don’t have the gambling instinct that Wu Yulien has. He confesses that he has enough confidence to take the gamble in operating such a large plantation.

He reveals that it takes a lot of money to set up a watermelon plantation in a new location. He estimates that the cost of production during the first crop could easily top P100,000 per hectare because of the irrigation facilities that have to be set up. By the second year, the cost of production could be only P50,000 per hectare.

And how profitable could watermelon production be? In the particular case of the Factor variety, Wu says that one hectare could yield an average of 20 tons. The export price at the time of our visit was P23 per kilo. So 20 tons could gross P460,000 at that price. Even if the marketable fruits were only 10 tons, the operation would still be profitable.

Wu says that the Hacienda Luisita farm is suitable for watermelon production during the dry season. He has two other areas for the rainy season production – 130 hectares of rented land in Magalang, Pampanga, and another 30 hectares in Clark.

Another Taiwanese, Peter Lin, a friend of Wu Yulien, is also renting land at Hacienda Luisita. He has planted this season different varieties of muskmelon and honeydew on 30 hectares for the local market. But that’s another story.