TEXT and PHOTO By Henrylito D. Tacio
Is it corn or is maize?
Outside North America, Australia, and New Zealand, corn means any cereal crop, its meaning understood to vary geographically to refer to the local staple. In the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, corn primarily means maize (probably from its scientific name: Zea mays); this usage started as a shortening of “Indian corn.” “Indian corn” primarily means maize (the staple grain of indigenous Americans), but can refer more specifically to multicolored “flint corn” used for decoration.
Again in places outside North America, Australia, and New Zealand, corn often refers to maize in culinary contexts. The narrower meaning is usually indicated by some additional word, as in sweet corn, corn on the cob, popcorn, corn flakes, and baby corn. In the Philippines, it is commonly known as “mais” or corn.
Actually, the story of corn started in 1492 when the men of Christopher Columbus discovered the cereal grain in Cuba. An American native, it was exported to Europe as a “garden curiosity.” Within a few years, it was discovered to be a valuable food crop. Soon thereafter, its cultivation spread throughout the continent and nearby Africa.
By 1575, corn was making its way into western China, and had become an essential crop in Asia, including the Philippines.
Today, corn is widely cultivated throughout the world, and a greater weight of corn is produced each year than any other grain. In 2009, for instance, worldwide production as 817 million tons while only 678 million tons of rice and 682 million tons of wheat were produced. The United States produces 40% of the world’s harvest; other top producing countries include China, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, India, France and Argentina.
In the Philippines, corn is the second most important staple food — after rice. It is used also for animal feeds and can be made into oil, starch, fuel, paper, and upholstery. Corn oil is utilized in the manufacture of margarine, vegetable lard and mayonnaise.
White corn is preferred by 12 million Filipinos as their main staple food. Compared with rice, corn has more vitamin A, protein and fats. It gives the body bone-building elements such as calcium and potassium.
This is the reason why corn is popular among the Visayas and Mindanao population. But in the 1970s, during the time of Jesus Tanchanco as food minister, corn became a bumper crop and it paved the way of introducing the grain among Metro Manila consumers.
Yellow corn (about 70 percent of it) is used for animal feeds. In the Philippines, nearly 80% of livestock and fishery expenditures are spent on feeds.
About one-third of Filipino farmers rely on corn production as their major source of income, according to Dr. Randy A. Hautea, global coordinator and Southeast Asian director of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA).
The Philippines is the fourth largest corn producer in Asia, growing about 2.5 million hectares of corn each year. But despite this, the country still lags in terms of corn production. In fact, there were instances that production dropped. Among those reasons cited were long drought season and high cost of fertilizer which forced some corn farmers to take a temporary lull in corn farming.
But the usual complain of corn farmers is the Asiatic corn borer, which causes yield losses of between 10 and 30 percent. It feeds on the plant stem, leaves and ears even before corn is harvested.
One possible solution to the problem is Bt corn. Bt stands for Bacillus thuringienses, a common soil bacterium that produces its own insecticidal protein. More and more Filipinos are now planting Bt corn in their farms; in fact, it is the only transgenic crop commercially planted in the country.
“The Filipino farmer is not lazy. They are industrious and are enterprising by nature,” explained Dr. Artemio M. Salazar, deputy director of the crops science cluster of the University of the Philippines at Los Baños (UPLB) on why more Filipino farmers are now planting Bt corn.
There’s money in growing Bt corn. Ask 35-year-old Ryan Lising, who has lived all his life in a farming community in Mandani, Magalang, Pampanga. Like his father before him, he is a corn farmer, and corn is his family’s main source of income. Corn gives him money not only to send his four children to school, but also to help him expand his business and buy his own farm machinery. His crop also allows him to assist other corn farmers in their community.
But unlike his father who planted white corn before him, Lising plants Bt corn. “Biotech corn changed my life completely. After years of planting it, I am now an important man,” he pointed out.
Before he ventured into farming, Lising worked as a messenger and errand boy for some of the big corn farms in Mandani. When his motorcycle was stolen, he felt that he lost his family’s livelihood, too.
He was helpless without the motorcycle that allowed him to move faster around the community, doing his job. Lising then became a farmhand, working on different farms doing all available work.
In 1996, after participating in a corn farm demonstration, he sought his father’s help so he could plant white corn in the family’s 1.5 hectare farmland. His income improved a bit, but not much. So, in 2003, when the government approved the commercial planting of Bt corn, he decided to plant it in his farm.
Following his first Bt corn harvest, it became clear to Lising that there was no turning back. He knew that it was the beginning of a new life for him and his family, who has faced so many hardships in trying to make ends meet.
“When I realized that I will earn more if I plant Bt corn, I decided to add two more children to my brood. Sending my children to school was not that difficult anymore,” he said.
A decade of planting Bt corn has changed Lising’s and his family’s life. His increased and steady income from planting biotech corn allowed him to explore other business opportunities. “I go to different corn farms in our barangay to see their corn. I am now a corn buyer.”
“Farmers had additional income because Bt corn yielded more compared to the (traditional varieties) per hectare, the average yield is at around 6 to 7 metric tons,” said ISAAA’s Dr. Hautea.
Corn silage production is another source of income for farmers who grow corn. A form of carabao feed, corn silage is made from chopped corn plants that are sealed tight in a silo or container and then fermented for two to three weeks. “It is a nutritious feed for carabaos as it is is a good source of energy and protein,” the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD).
One enterprising farmer who adopted the corn silage production technology promoted by the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) is Isagani Cajucom. He has been producing and marketing corn silage in Nueva Ecija.
The PCAARRD reported that during once cycle of planting and harvesting, he produced 54,729 kilograms of corn silage in his two-hectare farm which sold at P191,551.50. After deducting the cost for labor, planting materials, pesticide and herbicide application, irrigation, materials for chopping, and transportation, among other, he managed to collect a net income of P66,661.60.
In a span of two years, Cajucom has earned a total net income of P582,475.80 from four cycles of planting and harvesting.
The market for corn silage in the Philippines is huge. The PCAARRD reports: “In a day, a farmer engaged in dairy carabao production needs about 25-30 kilograms of feeds in 24 hours, for a carabao weighing from 400 to 500 kilograms. Not all farmers have access to open pastures where they can let their carabaos graze, hence the potential of corn silage production.”
There are several other uses of corn, too. The corn starch, for instance, can also be made into plastics, fabrics, adhesives, and many other chemical products.
Corn is also used as a feedstock for the production of ethanol fuel. Ethanol is mixed with gasoline to decrease the amount of pollutants emitted when used to fuel motor vehicles. Increasingly, ethanol is being used at low concentrations (10% or less) as an additive in gasoline (gasohol) for motor fuels to increase the octane rating, lower pollutants, and reduce petroleum use (what is nowadays also known as “biofuels”).
In Germany, corn is widely used as a feedstock for biogas plants. Here, the corn is harvested, shredded then placed in silage clamps from which it is fed into the biogas plants. This process makes use of the whole plant rather than simply using the kernels as in the production of fuel ethanol.
Unknowingly, some forms of corn are occasionally grown for ornamental use in the garden. For this purpose, variegated and colored leaf forms as well as those with colorful ears are used.
