Rice, corn, sugar: Trinity of woes

A FEW years back, the question of "What will feed the feed mills" was not even asked. The "feed" for the feed mills, which is yellow corn, was always available at competitive prices, or a range of P9 to P12 per kilogram. For the yellow corn needs of my small hog farm for example, the suppliers from Mexico-Magalang towns delivered corn on time — there was even a decent discount if you advanced money for future deliveries, a crude version of the Chicago grains futures. They established links with Isabela corn producers. If corn production in and around those two Pampanga towns fell short, they would simply call or SMS the Isabela suppliers, their back-up plan.

If an under-capitalized, small-time hog raiser like myself had no trouble sourcing yellow corn for my one-tonner mill that was not even fully automated, you can assume that buying yellow corn was generally a breeze for the bigger hog raisers with real capital.