Team Agriviz from AIM bags East-West Seed’s Innovation Olympics Championship

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Asian Institute of Management ( AIM ) students presents E- magsasaka paltform, and won Championship at the grand finals at East-West Seed’s Innovation Olympics held at 8 Waves Waterpark and Hotel in Bulacan. 

An E-magsasaka platform converts farmers to agri-preneurs.

Team Agriviz

Team Agriviz, composed of Aiah Sarmiento, Gorby Dimalanta, Aaron David, and mentored by East-West Seed’s Downstream Marketing Manager Dexter Difuntorum, takes great pride in their e-magsasaka online platform which hopes to address two of the major problems of our farmers: lack of direct access and lack of market information between buyers and growers. 

The e-magsasaka online platform hopes to minimize the involvement of middlemen which would increase the farmers’ revenue by at least 20% and keep the prices of vegetables more affordable for the consumers. 

The platform would have a database where buyers could find the farmers that could provide the produce that they need. At the same time, the farmers could also use the database to find the market to sell their produce.

During the 6-month pilot stage, Team Agriviz worked with farmers’ cooperatives, local government units and vegetable buyers to ensure that the e-magsasaka platform would significantly benefit the entire ecosystem of vegetable production.

Team Agriviz bested two other student groups—Team Pocket Farm and Team i-Agri Ventures, both from University of the Philippines Los Banos. 

Team Pocket Farm composed of Vince Maningas and Arvin Garcia was mentored by East-West Seed’s Project Manager, Martin Hinlo, thought of using the cellphone as a tool to help the farmers in determining the moisture level of their farm lands and prompt them through text messages on when to water their vegetables and how much water their plants need. 

Intelligent sensors that assess the moisture content of the farms are linked to the farmers’ cellphone and triggers the prompt.

Claiming 80-90% accuracy in determining moisture content, the Pocket farm device hopes to address the oftentimes erratic system of farm irrigation, a major factor in vegetable production.

Team Pocket Farm 

Team Pocket Farm piloted their device in petchay farms in Los Banos and Calamba and are hopeful that their gadget could help increase farmers’ produce by as much as 40-50%.

Team Pocket Farm received the East-West Seed Employees’ Choice Special Award for their concept.

Team i- Agri Ventures

Team i- Agri Ventures, on the other hand, came up with a solar-powered multi-crop dryer that could significantly cuts post-harvest loss and create new markets for vegetable farmers. 

Zeroing in on the irony specific to tomato growing where there is an oversupply of fresh tomatoes during peak season and, as a result, price plummets down from P15 per kilo to P5 per kilo.

Team i-Agri Ventures, composed of Jonas Ruzgal, Jayson Fumera, and Mark Limbo from UP Los Banos, hopes to address this problem through their multi-crop dryer, effectively converting excess fresh tomatoes to sun-dried tomatoes and creating an alternative way for farmers to sell their produce.

Team i-Agri Ventures mentor Arthur Cabacungan said that most tomato growers do not have storage facility and are, thus, forced to sell their excess produce at more than 80% less its actual value. However, with their solar-operated dryer, farmers get to convert their excess produce to dried tomatoes catering a different market like hotels, restaurants and caterers who are keen to using sun-dried tomatoes as replacement for fresh tomatoes. 

Team i-Agri Ventures is optimistic that their multi-crop dryer could help hike farmers’ revenue by as much as 30%.

INNOVATION OLYMPICS

Innovation Olympics 2017 was launched as part of the East-West Seed’s 35th anniversary last year with the theme, “Growing Opportunities.” East-West Seed, founded in 1982 by Dutch seedsman Simon Groot and Filipino seed trader Benito Domingo, is the first integrated vegetable company in the Philippines and one of the 10 biggest tropical vegetable seed producers in the world. 

“One of the major pillars of East-West Seed is learning and innovation. And so far, we have trained and enabled close to 50,000 smallholder farmers on proper vegetable farming techniques,” Henk Hermans, East-West Seed Philippines General Manager, said. 

Innovation Olympics, he adds, is a manifestation of East-West Seed’s commitment to address the two biggest problems facing vegetable farmers in the Philippines.

“Farmers represent the 2nd poorest sector in the Philippines. This sad reality results in our our young people ‘s disenchantment of pursuing a career in agriculture. The average age of Filipino farmers is 57-59 years old that is why we have to inspire our youth to discover the beauty of farming. We at East-West Seed know that there is money in vegetable farming and it could be a solid route in improving the lives of our people. Another problem is that farming practices in the Philippines are outdated and majority of our farmers are reluctant to use technology in farming making their work labor intensive and unsustainable,” Hermans said.

Through the Innovation Olympics, East-West Seed hopes to harness the minds of the youth to come up with their own innovative technological intervention. Students from different multiple backgrounds come up with sustainable solutions to improve productivity in vegetable farming, effectively addressing two major farming concerns: integration of technological innovations to improve vegetable production and to inspire the youth to consider farming as a professional goal and be ambassadors of modern day agriculture. 

“East-West Seed will continue to pursue ways on how to better equip Filipino vegetable farmers, inspire the youth to use their passion for technology in coming up with more innovative ideas for the farming sector and hopefully influence them to become the new breed of Filipino farmers,” Hermans adds.

       

In farming, millions start with one quality seed

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Philippines is primarily an agricultural country. The popular folk song "Magtanim ay 'Di Biro" (Planting rice is never fun) tells about the difficulties of the life of the farmers, bent over the entire day, to plant.

Farmers are the 2nd poorest work force in the country next to fishermen, reason for which the current generation shies away from pursuing a career in agriculture thinking that it is a difficult and unrewarding profession.

However, farming is a field where there are endless opportunities. In fact, vegetable farming could help you get out of poverty. Recently, I had the chance to experience to be a farming in one day. I joined the East-West Seed “Great Journey” listening tour in Bulacan to meet and greet farmer nominees in the Search for 35 Farmer Heroes, as part of East-West Seed’s 35th anniversary celebration. East-West Seed is an integrated vegetable seed company and one of the 10 largest seed companies in the world. The winners of the search will serve as ambassadors and role models in the vegetable farming industry.

East-West Seed hopes to be able to influence more people to get into vegetable production. 

Two of the Farmers Heroes nominees shared their interesting and profitable vegetable farming journey:

Johnny Gatuz, 55, a former OFW, shared with us how he now makes more money by growing papaya and other high-value crops in Brgy. Kaingin, San Rafael, Bulacan than when he was an Overseas Filipino Worker ( OFW ) in Saudi Arabia.

His father was a traditional farmer and they hardly made ends meet. This prompted Johnny to seek for the proverbial greener pastures and worked as a construction worker in Saudi Arabia where he worked for five years as a construction worker. While there, he realized that the life of an OFW is not easy at all coupled by the fact that he was not also earning significantly. He flew back home, fell in love, got married and fell in love anew with farm life.

He started by renting out a one-hectare farm land which he planted with pumpkin, okra and sitaw.

As a newbie farmer, he wasn’t earning enough. His breakthrough came when he discovered East-West Seed and started using their seeds in his farm. His yields doubled and the quality and consistency of his crops were so much better.

Johnny now owns several hectares of farm land, farm machinery, a tractor, his own motorcycle for transporting his crops to the market. He also has sufficient savings for his family.

To pay it forward, Johnny hires his neighbors to help him during planting and harvest seasons. He is also very generous in training other would-be-farmers and is, in fact, responsible for converting a jobless, “tambay” neighbor into a successful vegetable farmer.

Rowena Manalo, 41, of San Ildefonso, Bulacan was also raised in a family of farmers.

At a young age, she and her siblings were already trained how to do farm work. As she reached adulthood. She worked as “biyahera” of the vegetable harvests. As a “biyahera,” she transports the bundled produce from the farm to the market, specifically the “bagsakan” which is the Balintawak Market in Quezon City.

Such was her simple life until she fell in love and married Jun, also a farmer, when they were both 21.

Inspired by the success of other farmers, Rowena and Jun decided to have their own piece of land where they could also plant vegetables as their means of livelihood.

As other start-up farmers, the young couple rented out a half-hectare farmland and with a very small capital of P5,000 which they borrowed, they bought ampalaya and sitaw seeds and went straight ahead with planting these I their small farm lot.

But their journey was not easy.

“Lagi kaming umiiyak noon. Kasi tuwing dumadaan kami sa mga taniman, nilalait, iniinsulto at pinagtatawanan kami ng mga beterano ng magsasaka at sinasabi nila na ano ba ang alam naming sa pagsasaka. Hindi sila naniniwala na kaya naming palaguin ang aming sakahan,” Rowena said as she started to tear up.

“Bayaan mo, pagdating ng araw, atin lahat ang lupang ito,” her husband Jun would always tell her.

Her husband’s word proved to be prophetic as the couple now owns seven hectares of land, two tractors for rent, a grocery, agri store, a water refilling station and their own lovely house.

Rowena attributes their success to three things: their faith in God, the love in their marriage that never wavered and their love for the farm and hard work.

“Nagsimula kami sa binhi ng EWS na sitaw at ampalaya at nagulat kami dahil mas nagging mabunga at maganda ang quality ng aming mga ani. Sinundan naming tio ng talong at mais,” Rowena said, recalling their “breakthrough” moment.

Last 2015, Rowena shared that they hit their first million through an abundant yield high-quality mais grande.

There is something so humbling about seeing these farmers working hard to give us the most basic of our needs. Johnny and Rowena, with East-West Seed show us vegetable farming is a very profitable business and it is an industry that continues to grow.