Billionaire Antonio L. Tiu on Wednesday ramped up his agriculture and food security ventures and plans pouring P2.6 billion in a 20,000-hectare corn plantation via publicly-listed Agrinurture Inc.
“My main focus right now is to grow ANI’s revenue, to improve its profitability, to bring in new projects, and to be a major participant in solving the food security issues of the country.”
Antonio L. Tiu
He said Agrinurture is planning to borrow the P2 billion for the project from government-owned banks and come up with equity amounting to P600 million for a total project cost of P2.6 billion.
He said the firm has long been preparing to develop a 20,000-hectare corn plantation in Bansalan, Davao del Sur for the production of a blend of rice and corn grains or “bigas-mais” for public consumption to lessen the need to import rice.
“We tend to import rice because it is readily-available in the global market. However, as the pandemic has shown us, there are times when you cannot ensure food security even if you have money,” Tiu said.
He explained that it takes more than 3,000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of palay or unmilled rice and this is why the Philippines cannot be competitive in rice production because of a shortage of a large water supply like Vietnam’s Mekong River.
“For corn, it is less than 1,900 liters, sometimes 800 liters, so it’s less than a third or even one fourth of the water footprint of rice. Corn is thus more suitable for the Philippine set-up,” Tiu said.
Filipinos in Visayas and Mindanao used to eat corn as a staple during the 60s but the Visayans have been converted to rice in recent decades, he said.
This has increased the demand for rice, leaving the local corn industry behind despite it being an important component for the production of animal feeds.
Tiu said Agrinurture opted to start its 20,000 hectare corn plantation in Mindanao since the place has a higher chance of success because there is less weather disturbance like typhoons in the island.
“We will be using hybrid corn seeds and we’ll be using modern technology so we can produce about 10 to 15 metric tons per hectare per year or a total of 200,000 to 300,000 tons of corn per year,” he said.
HE pointed out this is only for Bansalan and Agrinurture still has other sites that it wants to capitalize on such as the penal colonies or areas abandoned by indigenous peoples with whom his company can partner with for corn production.
He said that Agrinurture’s goal is to be able to produce 1 million metric tons of corn a year in just three years. This recognizes that it takes time to sign agreements and secure the land.
