Practical techniques in farming make for greater efficiency that could mean more profits. We remember what Benito Magaling of Lipa City did so he could harvest two tons of Django, the very prolific “pang-sigang” variety of pepper, every day.

He divided his two hectares planted to Django into seven sections. Each section could produce two tons every seven days. So every day of the month, he was able to harvest two tons in just half a day.

And how did he make sure he could have those two tons harvested in just half a day? He hired 20 women pickers. Each picker only had to pick 100 kilos, which she could do in half a day. Isn’t that practical?

He paid those pickers P170 per half-day of labor, meaning P3,400 for the 20 pickers. And how much did he gross from the two tons? He sold them to big time dealers from Divisoria and in the Tanauan market at P50 per kilo. That was P100,000 every day!

SMALL PACKS. When we attended the World Expo in Hanover, Germany, some years back, we interviewed an agriculture technician of an NGO in a poor country in Africa. We no longer remember the name of that fellow and his organization but what we remember is how they managed to motivate the poor families to buy fertilizers for their home gardens. Instead of selling complete fertilizer by the kilos or by the sack of 50 kilos, they packed the fertilizer in very small packs, each worth just about 10 US cents. By offering the very affordable packs, they were able to sell a lot of fertilizers to the home gardeners, resulting in improved harvests.

HE PLANTED EVERY DAY. We also remember the late Dr. Valeriano Calma who taught at UP Los Banos. When he was just an instructor before the second World War, he bought a cogonal piece of property not far from where he lived. He did not have much money at that time, so he adopted a systematic way of developing the farm. He planted at least one fruit tree seedling every day before going to his office. That way, he was able to plant no less than 365 trees in just one year.

These are just a few simple winning techniques. We are sure that there are many more.