The Filipino Entrepreneur

I think everyone knows this vegetable. This is commonly added to a dish called chop suey where it is mixed with vegetables like cauliflower, chinese cabbage, cabbage, bell pepper, sayote, carrots and added with squid and some chicken meat or pork.I guess there is a good income opportunity in producing baby corn because I don’t see it often in the wet market or in a supermarket so there is a possibility that producers were seldom also. So if you want to know something about producing baby corn, below is a guide I found in Bureau of Plant Industry website.

Young cob corn (Zea mays L.), the newly developed corn, has been used by Chinese as vegetable for generations and this practice has spread to other Asian countries. It is used as ingredient in most food preparations. It has nutritive value similar to that of non-legume vegetable such as cauliflower, tomato, cucumber and cabbage (Yodpetch and Bautista, 1983). This vegetable has a great potential for cooking purposes and for processing as a canned product. Canned cob corn export to Thailand, Japan and Europe is increasing and has a good future.

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WHAT ARE ABALONES?

Abalones are gastropod molluscs belonging to the Family Haliotidae. The genus Haliotis means “sea ear.” There are about 70 species of abalone distributed worldwide. Abalones are slow-growing one-shelled gastropods which live in rocky and shallow waters near stands of algae. The abalone shell is characterized by having a row of respiratory pores called “tremata” located along its left margin. There are three species of abalone that naturally occur in Philippine marine waters:

the donkey’s ear abalone Haliotis asinina (local name – “lapas” or “sobra-sobra” in Ilonggo), H. varia (local name – “kapinan”), and H. ovina. H. asinina grow to a maximum size of 10-11 cm in shell length while H. varia and H. ovina are relatively smaller with maximum shell length of 6-8 cm. There are existing commercial abalone fisheries in the provinces of Iloilo, Guimaras, Negros, Samar, Surigao, Zamboanga, Palawan and Tawi-Tawi.

GENERAL BIOLOGY

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The freshwater catfish Clarias macrocephalus is native to the Philippines but is fast becoming scarce in many natural habitats. It is a favorite food fish due to its tender and delicious meat. Recently, farming of C. macrocephalus has gained interest among catfish growers.

Like other catfish species, it is resistant to diseases, can be stocked at high densities, and tolerates low water quality. The catfishes C. macrocephalus and C. batrachus are almost similar in size and appearance, but differ by the shape of the occipital process in the head portion. The occipital process is blunt or rounded in C. macrocephalus and pointed in C. batrachus. C. macrocephalus also has small white spots along the sides of the body.

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Mushrooms are fleshy, spore bearing fungi. These spores germinate under favorable conditions to microscopic filaments which branch to form a mycelium. Fusion of compatible mycelia gives rise to fruiting bodies. Nutritionally, mushrooms are called saprophyte and obtain their food from non-living matter. Carbon and nitrogen sources including other elements available in the substrates support vegetative growth and fruiting development of the fungi.

The fast-growing mushrooms are good source of delicious food with high nutritional attributes like proteins, essential amino acids, fats, vitamins, carbohydrates and fibers, and some have medicinal values as well. The art of mushroom propagation has advanced dramatically in the past decades due to the techniques of spawn preparation, wide selection of low cost materials and availability of agro-industrial wastes used as growing substrates.

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Making laundry bar soap can be a good business idea. You can also make laundry soap for house hold use so you will not have to buy it in the market. Below is the procedure on making the laundry soap made from coconut oil which is the main ingredient. Other materials needed can be bought from chemical stores or from ultima entrepinoy. Materials/Ingredients (for 28 bars)

• Coco oil - 8 kg
• Caustic soda solution, 36oBe [30% solution] - 5 kg
• Soda ash - 90 g
• Salt - 48 g
• Sodium silicate - 400 g
• CDEA [coco diethanolamide] - 40 mL
• Citronella oil - 20 mL
• Water - 6 L

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Mango, the country’s national fruit is considered as one of the finest in the world. It is the third most important fruit crop of the country based on export volume and value next to banana and pineapple. It has an established domestic market and has bright opportunities for the international market both in fresh or processed form. The country’s export variety, The “Carabao Mango” is one of the best varieties in the world.

But in order to harvest enough quantities for commercial purposes, you need to have a large land area to plant the trees. And as we are all aware of, mango trees are big and tall so the the harvesting will require labor cost that might not be feasible or might reduce our profit. And in addition to those disadvantages, harvesting is also time consuming and if we will use pesticides bigger trees will cost you more. So what is the solution then? we have to make trees smaller to reduce the overhead expenses. The following is how you create a dwarf mango tree by the technique of LOW BARK GRAFTING AND PRUNING OF MANGO TREE.

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Have you seen a square watermelon? look at the picture on the left side. I’m not kidding. This watermelon is being sold in Japan for around 10,000 yen ($83) while regular oval watermelon costs $15-$20. Quite expensive eh? here in the Philippines it won’t cost that much if you will grow it locally. There are abundant sources in the provinces but because of our poor transportation condition all of those supplies can’t reach metro manila in perfect condition and most of the time it cost higher than it suppose to be.

Then how about the square watermelon, are we able to make those like what they are doing now in Japan? looks like its not harder that we thought. I saw website that sell polycarbonate casing (Fig. 1 below) to mold the watermelon during the growing stage . Obviously you can’t shape it when it is already fully grown because the peel is already hard. You just have to put the fruit still attached to the vine inside the polycarbonate casing and let it grow until is occupies all the space inside and forms a cube or a square.

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Cattle fattening has gained prominence as an important business project of the livestock industry in the Philippines. It gives the farmer year-round work and pro- vides him with extra income. He can make use of cheap, plentiful farm by-products such as corn stovers, rice straw, copra meal, rice bran and sugarcane tops, which ordinarily go to waste. Most importantly, it helps meet the urgent demand for high-protein foods in the Filipino diet. Backyard cattle fattening or on a large scale can be profitably undertaken. It consists of buying healthy stock, feeding and fattening them for 120 to 180 days, and selling them at anytime of the year. Minimum space for housing is required: 1.5 to 2 sq. meters per head for a sheltered feeding area, and 5 meters per head for a fenced loafing area. Given the proper care, there is less danger of diseases and parasites affecting confined animals and the fattening period is shorter. Marbling or intermixture of fat and lean in meat is better obtained through feedlot fattening. This is preferred by customers.

Selecting Feeder Stock
To make profit and produce good meat, consider the following points:

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MANGOSTEEN (Garcinia mangostana Linn of the family Gutiiferae) is one of the most delicious and best flavored fruits in the world. It is one tropical fruit that is most ready accepted by the Western. It is a seasonal fruit that has a great export market. The ditable portion of the mangosteen fruit is 1/3 of the whole fruit. The aril is about 25-30% of the fruit and contains 19.8% soluble solids, 4.3% reducing sugar, and 17.5% to total sugar. Analysis of the rind indicates that it is rich in pectin.

Uses and Food Value
Its composition taken from the 1990 edition of the Food Composition Table prepared by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute is as follows. The pulp, which is very light and soft and has an exquisite flavor, is best eaten fresh, preferably after chilling the fruit. The pulp and seed, when boiled with sugar, make an excellent preserve or topping for ice cream or sherbet. The seeds have a delicious nutty flavor. The leaves and bark, claimed to be medecinal, are used as astringent to cure aphtha or thrush. They are also used as a febrifuge or antipyretic while the pericarp is regarded as very effective in curing chronic intestinal catarrh.

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I. Preparing the Fishpond

• Construct a small fishpond in areas having suitable clay soil and abundant water supply, about 10 meters wide, 20 meters long and 1 meter depth.

• Irrigate up to 3 to 5 centimeters (cm.) water level.

• Apply 1 kilo of dried chicken manure fertilizer per square meter (sqm.) of the pond

• Let natural fish food organisms grow in 15 to 17 days.

• Irrigate the pond up to 50 cm. level. The pond is now prepared for stocking of the tilapia breeders/adults.

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