Tiu allots ₧2.6B for corn venture

Billionaire a n tonio l T iu on Wednesday said he is increasing his focus on agriculture and food security and will invest some P2.6 billion for a 20,000-hectare corn plantation through publicly-listed a g ri nu rture i nc. ( a ni )

“My main focus right now is to grow a ni s revenue, to improve the profitability, to bring in new projects, and to be a major participant in solving the food security issues of the country,” Tiu told reporters in an interview. He said a g ri nu rture is planning to borrow the P2 billion for the project from government-owned banks and come up with an equity amounting to P600 million.

Tiu 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 cut the country’s rice imports.

“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.”

He said it takes more than 3,000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of palay or unmilled rice so the Philippines cannot be competitive in rice production because it does not have sources of a large water supply like Vietnam’s Mekong r i ver.

“For corn, it needs 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 Philippines.”

Corn used to be a staple food in the Visayas and Mindanao during the 1960s but the Visayans have become rice eaters in recent decades, he said. This has increased the demand for rice while the local corn industry has been left behind despite the fact that yellow corn is an important component for the production of animal feeds.

Tiu said a g ri nu rture decided to open its corn plantation in Mind- anao because the region is not usually visited by typhoons.

“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.”

Tiu said this is only for Bansalan and a ni wants to capitalize on other sites, such as the penal colonies or areas abandoned by indigenous peoples with whom his company can partner for corn production. He said a ni s goal is to produce 1 million metric tons of corn a year in three years’ time. This timeline takes into consideration the signing of agreements and securing its required land area. VG

Cabuag

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