A FORMER overseas contract worker ,and Tondo-born electrical engineer have turned into becoming a hugely successful agri-entrepreneur who now runs a 36-hectare hybrid rice farm in Nueva Ecija.
Having been raised in the streets of Tondo, Manila relatively Danilo Bolos, has never even imagined himself owning such a huge farmland and becoming a full-time rice planter.
“I’m not a farmer’s son,” he quipped. It all started when I personally witnessed my wife’s cousins from Sta. Rosa (Nueva Ecija) became so successful in farming and eventually becoming financially independent.
I never really dreamt to get rich. Initially, I just wanted to have at most three hectares of land where I can plant and build a modest farmhouse (Bahay Kubo) where I could at least spend some quiet country lifestyle,” he said.
For many years he was content at growing registered inbred seeds—then the highest yielding type of rice prior to year 2000 when there was no hybrid rice yet in the market.
He bought foundation seeds from Philrice (Philippine Rice Research Institute) and grew those seeds for his own family’s use on an original three hectares of rice field and farm land that he owns.
For the past 20 years, that piece of land was planted, season after season with such inbred seeds. Being high yielding, the seeds gave him 150 to 180 cavans per hectare.
He was content at his earning until he had the chance in getting introduced to the hybrid rice growing program of the Department of Agriculture (DA). The program taught farmers how to grow hybrid rice seeds.
From then on, Bolos made sure to take farming more seriously and probably on a larger scale this time.
He attended seminars provided by the government—DA technicians and municipal agriculturists—that enabled him to soon become an “expert” at hybrid rice farming.
“I felt that farming isn’t something that should just be taken as a hobby. But it should be studied very seriously and must be considered as a full-time job,” said Bolos.
“When it was just being introduced, many criticized SL-8. They said it was disease-prone, and the rice spoils fast,” he said. “Then, hybrid seeds even sold lower in the market by P1 per kilo compared to other seeds.”
Despite the criticisms, the trade-off (for using hybrids) yielded far better with his in-bred seeds. Total initial yield was 200 cavans per hectare.
The income boosting results encouraged him to stick to hybrid rice production. Now he grows mostly SL-8H on 36 hectares particularly during the dry season.
“In the dry season, my inbred just occupies one hectare, the rest are SL 8seeds,” he said. “Some are even surprised that I grow SL-8 during the rainy season. Why not—if I harvest 120 from inbred, I still harvest more – around 150 to 160 – from SL-8 in the west season?”
In the rainy season, he devotes as much as 10 hectares for hybrids—in lands near his sight so he could constantly monitor them.
Since he now enjoys the fruit of his risk taking efforts and persistence in growing SL-8H, he has also started to reach out to other farmers who have yet to understand and eventually benefit from hybrid rice production.
As founding chairman of the Federation of Irrigators Associations STAR Capalay (Sta. Rosa, Cabanatuan, Palayan federation of Irrigation Association or IA), he’s assisting 42 other farmer-leader/presidents of IAs farmers for Hybrid rice production.
As chairman of this IA federation, his financial compensation comes in the form of an occasional fertilizer grant from the government when calamities come.