Sunflower Club News

Dr. Jayson Canson is an opthalmologist and plastic surgeon who loves farming. Despite his buys schedule practicing his medical profession, he is undertaking his own farming projects in a portion of St. Martha Farms in Teresa, Rizal, where his parents run a 70,000 head poultry contract breeding operation and a Pangasius hatchery. Piggery is a pet [...]

A new coconut variety that can yield as many as 150 nuts per tree in one year was showcased at the recent coconut festival and trade fair held at the SM Megamall recently. This is the Orgullo Tall, a synthetic San Ramon variety that was developed by the breeding and genetics division headed by Ramon [...]

The Land Bank of the Philippines(Landbank) recently signed memorandum of agreement with the Departmentof Agrarian Reform, through its Agraran Reform Communities Project 2 DAR-ARCP2) for the implemenation of the Agri-enterprise Credit iand Agrifinance Service (agri-Cash) project. The project aims to provide finanial services to agri-based enterprises in Agrarian Reform Commmities (ARCs) through selected ountryside financial institutions, [...]

Like most farmers in Barangay Paralaya in Candaba, Pampanga, Rodolfo Gatbonton believes that melon production was one of the things that made their town famous in the past. “Farmers in Candaba pioneered in melon growing,” he says. “But too many people producing the same crop caused farmgate prices to fall, making melon production unprofitable. The farmers [...]

“Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari. Singkatnas at talong, sigarilyas at mans, sitaw, bataw, patani, kundol, patola, upo, kalabasa, labanos, mustasa, sibuyas, kamatis,bawang, luya at linga…” So goes a familiar line of the very popular Filipino folksong “Bahay Kubo.” The 18 crops mentioned in the song are Grown in the Bahay Kubo Garden of the Department of [...]

Perhaps, one way of helping Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala achieve his goal of stopping rice importation after three years is to grow more camote and more people shifting from rice to eating camote. That will not only help us attain rice self-sufficiency, it could also result in more healthy Filipinos. Ask our good friend Dr. [...]

A multi-awarded agricultural engineer at the Bureau of Postharvest Research and Extension (BPRE) has developed a state-of-the art but low-cost computer vision system (CVS) for analyzing the quality of milled rice. He is Dr. Manolito C. Bulaong. In his CVS, an ordinary scanner serves as the “eye” of the system. It replaces the expensive digital cameras [...]

This article is co-authored by Lorelvn Joy Turnos, a research associate of Pioneer Hi-Bred Philippines based in Mindanao. For further information on this article, send your inquiries to mark.nas@pioneer.com. In this issue, we will talk about another important bacterial disease of rice known as bacterial leaf streak (BLS), which is caused by the bacterium Xanthomonas oryzae [...]

Sheep raisers in the Philippines are much less than goat raisers. That’s probably because most Filipinos have been used to eating goat rather than sheep. But there is an increasing awareness of the potentials of sheep production as a possible money-maker for local farmers. That’s the belief of Jonie and Jeff Valencia, the father and son [...]

The farming systems and Soil Resources Institute(FSSRI) of the University of the Philippine Los Banos(UPLB) has bagged the 2009 Global Development Marketplace(DM2009) competetive grant. This competitive grant for innovation in development is administered by the World Bank and sponsored by the World Bank Institute, Global Environment Facility (GEF), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the [...]

Everytime I visit the Kaohsiung, the prefecture in southern Taiwan, my first impulse is to enjoy the fruits in season. In fact, my father-in-law is always ready with a few pieces, especially with my favorite Taiwan orange – Liu Ding, which is available almost all year round except for the winter months, and lately, their [...]

Your kids don’t want to eat vegetables? Serve them veggie-flavored ice cream and malunggay noodles from Ilocos Sur and they might ask for more. The ice cream comes in many flavors. Malunggay, squash, bell pepper-cheese, pinipig, mungbeans, peanut butter, coffee, and the local candy made from sugarcane called balikutsa are the signature flavors. Seasonal flavors include [...]

Remember the Oakwood Mutiny? The group of soldiers Magdalo protested against the irregularities in the army but they got caught, detained and charged with coup d’ etat. Captain Laurence Louis B. Somera of the 1st Scout Ranger Regiment, Special Operations Command of the Philippine Army is one of them. Though he was granted conditional pardon by [...]

In many developing countries, livestock production is a major contributor to gross domestic product. And agroforestry practices that are mainly concerned with the management of trees, forage and livestock is known as Silvopasture. In silvopasture systems, forage crops are deliberately introduced into a timber production system, or trees are deliberately introduced into a forage production system. [...]

A rice hull furnace (RHF) equipped with an automatic fuel feed system or ram-fed mechanism is now ready for commercialization in the Philippines. Pilot testing of the furnace was successfully conducted in Macalamcam A, Rosario, Batangas using a 5-ton flatbed paddy dryer. Technical assistance and supervision during the installation and pilot testing was provided by  Engr. [...]

A young farmer from Kalinga province in Northern Luzon is making people’s heads turn in Sto. Tomas, Batangas as he produces big heads of cabbage. He is 26-year-old Elmer Migo, an agriculture graduate from the Kalinga-Apayao State College in Tabuk, the provincial capital of Kalinga. After finishing college, he joined his parents in Sto. Tomas where [...]

This article is co-authored by Alvin Cariho, a district agronomist of Pioneer Hi-Bred Philippines based in Nueva Ecija. The past several seasons was quite challenging for corn farmers. Besides the depressed grain price, which depressed many people’s emotional well-being, our climate has also been unpredictable, leading to crop failure, low yields and plenty of postharvest woes. As [...]

One reason goat raising is profitable and becoming popular nowadays is the fact that there are a lot of products one can make out of goat’s milk. Cheese, pastillas, yogurt, and soap are some interesting goat milk products. And these are what a farmer scientist of the Southern Mindanao Agriculture and Resources Research and Development Consortium [...]

One of the most upbeat gentleman farmers we met recently is Rene Florencio, a mechanical engineer who used to manage a well known machinery firm based in Makati. After his retirement, he bought a 20-hectare raw land in Tarlac City which he planted to mango and pummelo. He is particularly excited about his pummelo because they [...]

A new japonica rice variety is getting popular among rice farmers in Pilar town of Bohol. It’s because this type of rice is of high quality and commands a premium price, especially in countries where it is not traditionally grown, including the Philippines. This rice is now popularly known as Maligaya Special 11 or MS 11, [...]