PRECIOSA MATURAN of Tolong, Central Visayas, is worthy to be nominated as an outstanding sugarcane farmer because of her passion and dedication not only to her farm, but also to the people she serves – her family, her farm workers, and her community.

She is an active member of various civic and religious organizations in Bayawan City, such as the Hospital Health Board, Solid Waste Management, and Tolong Multi-Purpose Cooperative.  She also offers scholarships to children and gives livelihood and financial assistance to the community. 

As a farmer, she has adopted the latest sugarcane technologies which made her produce more than 120 lkg/ha, as against the Tolong average of 95.86 lkg/ha.

Indeed, she is a picture of success as she believes in vision, hard work, integrity and perseverance in living her life as a farmer, a mother, and a generous member of the sugarcane farmers’ community.

JOMAR ASUNCION of Nangalisan, Solana, Cagayan, is a nurse by profession but preferred to venture into sugarcane farming because he saw the potentials of this business from his father-in-law who was a long-time sugarcane farmer.

He turned the weary soil productive by adopting modern technologies, using farm mechanization, appropriate cultural management and organic farming.  All his skills and talents in sugarcane farming made him a consistent top yielder for the past two years.

With his success, he has been an instrument of technology transfer in his barangay and neighboring barangays.  His farms became a model of technology when he was able to make the soil productive.  Today, almost all of the idle lands of the neighboring areas are planted with sugarcane and other crops.  He established an Integrated Farming Technology by integrating fishpond, mangoes, coconut, citrus and vegetables in his sugarcane farm.

Mr. Asuncion has contributed to the job generation program of the present administration by employing up to 200 cane planters/cutters for a period of four months aside from his regular laborer and tractor operators in the farm.

KENT JAVELOSA is the nominee of Western Visayas.  His career on sugarcane farming started when his father requested his assistance in managing their 11.75-hectare farm.  From then on, he became passionate in his responsibility as a sugarcane farmer, not just to the farm but to his laborers as well.
As a protector of the environment, he practices trash farming and applies organic fertilizers on his farm.  He also sprays Beneficial Micro-Organisms (BMO’s) that they personally prepare, composed of IMO, FPJ, FFJ, OHN, FAA and LABS, all with molasses base.

As an entrepreneur, he entered into “Contract Growing” with San Miguel Corporation and is now raising 104,000 heads of broiler from the initial 26,000 heads.  This also became his means for a constant supply of chicken dung for his bio-organic fertilizer.  He also cultured African Night Crawlers as part of his organic fertilizer production.

He is currently elected as a member of the Sangguniang Panlungsod of Sagay City.  He is also a Board of Director of Sagay Central Inc. and Organic Producers Multi-Purpose Cooperative, and a member of Sagay Jaycees and various associations in Negros Occidental.