Rice farming/opening a mill?

[Celtictiger]

Hi Guys,

This is my first post. I will be moving to the Philippines in January 2018. I met my wife in Canada and we are moving to her home province to take over her parents 25 Hectare rice farm. We have a piece of land on the highway that we are considering for a  Rice mill operation etc. does anybody have any experience with Rice farming that might be able to give advice and be of guidance in general? Thanks!!

[lost_in_samoa]

Are you intending to farm industrially or organically? 

If you are farming industrially, meaning chemical fertilizer, hybrid seed, herbicide and insecticide you can hire any number of folks local to your farm who in all probability have farmed your section of ground before who know all about it. 

Those folks will be advised by a strong network of corporate sponsored "technicians", ( seed and chemical salesmen), who will pretty much walk the crop through from planting to harvest.

You can also share crop with people close to you.  It is just that.  You put up the land and capital for the crop, they put up the expertise, and labor.  You split the crop or the loss.  The split is negotiable.

If you are attempting to grow organic rice then you better sit down and take a deep breath before you commit

Understand almost all of the farm land here has been blasted with every element on the periodic table at least three times a year for the last 50 years or so.   

A lot of property is "farmed out".  Meaning chemical crops non stop until the soil will not even support weeds.  It literally becomes a cement clay hardpan.

We are on our 6th year of trying to just rebuild the soil.  And finally we are seeing some improvement.

Hope this helps.

[lost_in_samoa]

Rice farming

As an afterthought this helped me when I was just starting out.

 A Farmer's primer on growing rice, (English) - B.S. Vergara

http://irri.org/resources/publications/books/farmer-s-primer-on-growing-rice-a-english

[FMSINC]

If you interested in opening a Rice Mill come visit us in Roxas City. I moved here 15 years ago and started a mill and have been making a good living at it.

Just contact me at the address below be glad to give you some advice

Good luck on your venture


Farmers Milling & Supply Co. Inc.
Tom Moskal
Cogon, Panitan Capiz Panay Island 
Republic of the Philippines 5815
Phone 63-917-300-7499
E-mail farmersmilling@gmail.com

 

[Celtictiger]

Thanks for the advice lost in Samoa! I guess my in law farm has been farmed with chemical fertilizer for years so I guess we could look into improving our methods to save the soil. Possibly using the waste from the rice mill (husk) to reduce the amount of fertilizer. I also appreciate the advice regarding financing land my wife is aware and already has plans to do this. The farm itself is established and is making good living, so it's more the mill I am researching at this point. Tom I appreciate your offer and I would defiantly like to visit you at some point to have a look at your operation.  I might send you an email in the meantime to get an idea of costing,  advice on a machine supplier etc? If you don't mind.

Thanks again guys!

[lost_in_samoa]

Thanks for the advice

Your very welcome. 

We have learned the hard way that rebuilding the soil is no easy or fast job.  If your farm is productive I would not interrupt it unless your very serious about converting to organic agriculture.

I will say that we have learned that you can generate a little more food, (or peso's if you wish), by cover cropping with mung beans in between your normal crop rotation.  I am guessing that y'all do a rice / corn rotation.  That is most common here.

Good luck with the mill.  I don't know anything about large scale or commercial milling business.  We have a very large and well established mill right down the road from us, so attempting to compete with them made no sense.

We did buy a small single pass family mill, (capable of handling most small grains, rice, corn, wheat, oats, etc), and converted that to run off of solar electric.

good luck in the new year.  Salamat