Profit follows farmers who went home to plant ‘camote’

WHEN someone dares you to go home and plant “camote,” heed that advice. There is money in camote (sweet potato) farming. This is what farmers discovered from planting the root crop in the last decade in at least four villages in Moncada, Tarlac province.

“I was here in the early 1990s and the houses here were small. But look at them now, they are big,” said Lilibeth Bajit-Laranang, director for research and development of Tarlac College of Agriculture (TCA) in Camiling town.

Laranang was in Barangay Ablang-Sapang in Moncada last month for the field day of the two-day Sweet Potato Farms and Industry Encounter for Science and Technology Agenda (Fiesta), an event showcasing sweet potato and its products.

Ablang-Sapang and the villages of Banaoang West, Calapan and Capaoayan have about 2,000 hectares of camote farms, making Moncada the country’s biggest sweet potato producer, said Cesario Tabago, chief executive officer of the Sapang Multipurpose Cooperative (SMPC).

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority website, Tarlac province’s 5,150-ha camote farms in 2014 produced 21,726.69 metric tons (MT), or 66.2 percent of the total camote production in Central Luzon that year.

Camote season begins in August, when farmers start planting. The root crops are harvested every three months until March.

“We plant camote only once a year. We practice alternate cropping. For instance, after planting corn, we plant camote or after planting turnips, we plant camote,” Tabago said.

In a good season, a hectare of farm yields about 30 MT or 300 100-kilogram (kg) sacks (1 MT = 1,000 kg). A farmer spends about P70,000 for every hectare to defray costs of land preparation, planting, plant care, harvesting and hauling.

“If you harvested 300 sacks, with the prevailing price now of P1,300 per sack, you have a gross income of about P390,000. If you subtract your expenses of P70,000, you get P270,000 profit for one hectare,” Tabago said.

Phillip Ibarra, former TCA president and now agriculture consultant of Tarlac Gov. Victor Yap, said no farmer had yet lost income from planting camote.

Even crops with defects, such as growth cracks, which are rejected by fresh market traders, could be converted into cash, Ibarra said. About 20 percent of those harvested are usually rejected and left to rot in the farms.

“They chip them, then sun dry them and then San Miguel Foods comes and buy them at P11 a kg to be made into feeds,” Ibarra said.

Tabago’s cooperative has acquired a chipping machine which members can use for free. “That’s why when the buying price is very low, we just chip our camote,” he said.

Because of fluctuating buying prices of fresh camote, farmers have to introduce value-adding activities, said Laranang, who has been working with the cooperative for the last decade. “We introduced sweet potato-based products, such as candies and flour, and promoted camote as health food,” she said.