MANILA, Philippines — One of Philippines’ most diversified agricultural firms, Agri Nurture Inc. (ANI), is investing P80 million for the production of white corn, now a government flagship health-food security crop.

Taking on a Department of Agriculture (DA)-developed technology, ANI will introduce in July the Fresh Choice Always (FCA) white corn for which it will invest up to P30 million for a grain-to-grit corn mill.

While rice remains to be the country’s staple, ANI Chief Executive Officer Antonio L. Tiu believes white corn has a huge potential to become a market success.

“Although there was a mentality among the Tagalog's before that it’s for the poor, white corn is actually healthier. It’s widely accepted by the Visayas-Mindanao population and is the staple of boxing champs,” said Tiu in a statement.

DA has put in P40 million for seed propagation of a high-yielding open pollinated white corn variety developed by the Institute of Plant Breeding-University of the Philippines Los Banos College of Agriculture (IPB-UPLB-CA). DA is allocating P35 million for its regional offices’ production of white corn seeds spread over the next five years.

While ANI is the first to embark on this investment, government foresees other private companies will adopt white corn, much as how hybrid rice was absorbed by the market.

“We need private companies like ANI to bring investments into this low GI (glycemic indes) food. ANI’s reach in the middle to upper class market will make uptake of corn easier in all market levels. After all, nutritious food should be for all, according to Dr. Artemio M. Salazar, IPB-UPLB deputy director and National Corn Research, Development, and Extension Network (NC-RDEN) head.

“Now that we have the confidence that the technology works, DA’s support to a company like ANI, which will commercialize it, is in order. This is in line with government’s Public Private Partnership approach. Other companies willing to put in the investment would be welcome as well.”

ANI will release by July just a few metric tons (MT) of white corn in two and five kilo packs in supermarkets nationwide and a 50-kilo sack for wholesalers.

“This is ANI's drive to help the government solve the food shortage problem by offering substitutes to rice after the successful launching of our hybrid rice last April with Beidahuang officers, DA officials, and Sen. Francis Pangilinan in Nueva Ecija,” Tiu said.

It is set to expand area in DA-identified Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) farms over up to 1,000 hectares by yearend. Production cost at P50,000 per hectare will require investment of P50 million for the seeds and fertilizer for a 1,000-hectare area targeted by end-2011.

ANI is positioning white corn as a health food suitable for diabetics owing to its low GI since the rich fiber in corn makes release in the body of glucose much slower compared to rice.

Salazar said UPLB’s Institute of Human Nutrition and DA are popularizing white corn’s health benefits and its use for champorado, lugaw (korngee), coffee, fritters, pulboron, pastillas, espasol, suman, hotcake, turon, maruya, and of course as rice blend.

Another important goal of DA for white corn’s propagation is jobs creation as each hectare of land planted can generate one job along with many indirect jobs that this will create. The high yield in IPB-UPLB’s variety can give farmers a higher income compared to their prevailing varieties.

Field tests indicate that Based IPB’s white corn open pollinated variety Var 6 is comparable with commercial white corn hybrids at an average of 5.84 metric tons (MT) per hectare in Luzon; 5.45 MT per hectare in Visayas, and 4.47 MT per hectare in Mindanao.

Corn is said to be a more nutritious staple than rice.

“Corn is the health food recommended for energy specially for athletes. Some successful athletes were found to have been regular corn-eaters. This is true not only for boxers from General Santos in Mindanao but also for boxers and other sports personalities from Latin America and Africa.

It also has more protein, more lysine and tryptophan, more dietary fiber, more minerals, and more antioxidants than when eating rice alone,” IPB said.

Salazar said DA and IPB-UPLB has put in place a technology commercialization scheme for this white corn.

“Now that we have the confidence that the technology works, DA’s support to a company like ANI, which will commercialize it, is in order. This is in line with government’s Public Private Partnership approach.