Agriculture, anyone?

Hardly anybody in the country has been investing in agriculture, says tycoon Isidro “Sid” Consunji during the 57th Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX) Conference.

Sad but true. Some of the country’s biggest conglomerates don’t have investments in agriculture, with the exception of a few groups that have agriculture-related ventures – the MVP Group, San Miguel Corp. and Universal Robina Corp.

And more often than not, the only times agriculture makes the headlines are when typhoons devastate our crops or, as we’re seeing recently, when farm-to-market roads are corrupted with impunity, just like flood control projects.

Investing in agriculture isn’t popular perhaps because it’s not as lucrative as say power, telcos or retail.

But it’s one way to help the country move forward because the sector is where a lot of Filipinos are really poor, says Consunji, chairman, president and CEO of DMCI Holdings Inc.

In his speech, “Leading the way in rural community building,” Consunji shares that agriculture is his next big venture.

As such, he is now putting on a farmer’s hat. Sort of. I say sort of because I don’t imagine Sid breaking his back, sunbaked under the noonday sun, toiling in hectares of plantation, as a farmer would. Although the allure of that might catch up with him, too.

I know some retired uncles and aunts who actually found joy in farming after living hectic corporate lives.

In any case, I imagine Sid more on the business aspect – growing an agriculture venture, as he did with other businesses. He will make it profitable and in the process, unlock the value of the land and help in rural development.

“As I step back from active management in DMCI, I’m about to retire, I’ve been spending more and more time on our family’s agriculture ventures,” he said.

Agriculture has one of the highest poverty rates in the country at around 27 percent, he added.

“So our goal is to develop marginal land, which is denuded, logged-over land, where there are very few economic activities, and turning idle land into real livelihoods.”

Some parts of Mindanao, where the Consunji family once operated logging areas, have been converted into plantations – rubber, palm oil, coffee and durian.

These plantations have translated to livelihood opportunities for a lot of people, he said.

“While when we were in logging with less than 500 people, now we have more than 3,000 people in our agricultural venture.”

At present, the family operates plantations across Mindanao – palm oil and rubber in Zamboanga, coffee and durian in Sultan Kudarat and fruit trees in Sarangani and Davao.

Next stop: Visayas

The next stop for this Consunji family-led agriculture venture is an African palm oil project in Candoni, Negros Occidental, which is south of Bacolod.

They are now in the final stages of securing permits.

“If everything goes as planned, we aim to develop 6,000 hectares in the next two years and expand to 12,000 hectares in five years,” Sid said.

Reforestation efforts

Just this July, in partnership with Marubeni and UP Los Baños, they also started a reforestation project in the same area, intending to plant 1.5 million trees over 15,000 hectares in Candoni.

This is mainly for carbon credits. And if it succeeds, they intend to go up to 100,000 hectares in areas that were denuded.

“Between the plantation and reforestation projects, the workforce in Candoni could reach around 2,500 people,” Sid noted.

To help farmers, they will run a plant-now-pay-later scheme. This way, farmers – Muslims and Christians – can participate in the value chain.

“We don’t want that it’s only the company that can survive. So we intend for small farmers to also benefit. But most of them do not have the money, especially for the seedlings. So what we’re trying to do is to give them the seeds today, and they start paying us five years from today when they start harvesting,” Sid said.

In Zamboanga, they have also helped improve infrastructure and connectivity, allowing the public to use their company road which reduced travel time to the nearest city by over four hours.

In some sitios previously without transportation or communications, they also introduced Starlink and shuttles so that children can get to school.

These initiatives have helped improve the municipalities.

Sirawai in Zamboanga improved from fifth class to second class. Candoni, where reforestation started just a year ago, has changed from fourth class to third class in one year.

But is rural development sustainable?

Sid says so, as long as the businesses are profitable.

“Our intention is that whatever income the agriculture business creates would go back to the business and not to dividend it out. I hope that other people or other organizations would replicate something similar to what we’re doing, because hardly anybody in the country has been investing in agriculture,” he says.

As with any project, one challenge of course is to convince the local communities of the benefits of agriculture ventures. We’re not talking of a small parcel of land after all but hectares upon hectares of land.

It’s no secret that land has been the root cause of poverty in the country and a major contributor to stark inequality.

Hopefully, we can find that sweet spot between development, livelihood and the preservation of agricultural land.

Some will balk at more plantations. But would they rather see the land converted into more malls or subdivisions?

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