Of fathers and sons
By Merceditas A. Esguerra
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 08:31:00 04/04/2009
Filed Under: Agriculture, Family
The Philippines is the world’s fifth leading producer of bananas, behind India, Brazil, China and Ecuador. Contributing to the country’s output is the Puyod clan of Davao City.
The clan controls Philippine Greenfarm Development Corp. and Philippine Fresh Fruits Corp. — two dynamic agribusiness companies in Davao City that are testament to the perseverance, hard work and innovation displayed by four generations of Puyods.
They speak volumes of the successful journey of Iloilo migrant Luciano Franco Puyod, Sr. (1871-1976), the hands-on management style that he and his son Federico Puyod Sr. (1912-1985) used to manage the abaca and eventually, ramie farm, and the passing on of virtues such as hard work, trust and prudence to Federico’s eldest, Luciano ‘Sonny’ Puyod II.
It is no surprise then that Sonny’s own sons, Luciano ‘Dicky’ Puyod III and Edward Puyod, share the family passion to achieve.
The two have brought Greenfarm to a different level and this built their confidence to set up a marketing arm, PhilFresh, in 2003. They carry the brands Marcela and Sweety.
The management style of the third and fourth generation Puyods is a fusion of the old and new schools. It is anchored on the practical, experiential, but maverick styles of Luciano Puyod Sr. and his son, Federico Sr., from whom Sonny got his business fundamentals, but combined with the academic yet open-minded outlook of the younger generation.
Making the grade
Each generation contributed to the growth of the family business.
Luciano Sr. acquired and laboriously cleared a vast tract of land when he set foot in Davao in the early 1900s, when it was sparsely populated and had only two streets.
He planted the land with abaca.
Federico Sr. convinced his father to shift to ramie in the late 1950s. The ramie fiber became their bread and butter until 1969. During this time, Stanfilco, a division of Dole, grew the first seedlings of Cavendish bananas that came from Honduras.
Puyod Farms became a banana grower for Stanfilco, and therefore an indirect grower for Dole. The family leased one of its small farms to another banana grower, Davao Fruits.
Sonny is credited for opening the gates for small banana farmers to enter the league of growers for big companies that was once the exclusive domain of corporate growers.
Like other backyard growers, the family earned comparatively little, banana for banana. Sonny was not content with the family farm simply being an indirect banana grower for big companies. He noticed that the big banana growers (with farms of 500 to more than 1,000 hectares planted to bananas) were doing big and brisk business. Sonny entered into a growership contract with Davao Fruits in 1985 when the lease agreement expired.
It became the first small banana grower to supply a big company, enjoy buying prices pegged in US dollars and reserved only for big corporate farms.
Dicky replicated his father’s feat in 1998 when the family successfully negotiated for a growership contract, also dollar-based, with Dole. Thereafter, all growers of Dole with expiring contracts would simply ask to be given the same “Puyod scheme.”
This was the start of an unstoppable trend of the FOB system where small banana growers get paid in US dollars for every box delivered to the ports of the multinational companies.
Puyod Farms became Philippine Greenfarm Development Corp. in 1998, the brainchild of Dicky. With the incorporation, organizational changes took place, management positions were created, and farm and office systems and procedures installed and systematized. Experts from multinationals were taken in.
Edward institutionalized the human resources and administration aspects of the business. While staff and workers were hired primarily on trust and referrals during the time of Sonny and his elders, the company became cautious and installed strict entry points for office recruits; people with a formal training in agriculture were taken in and sent to leadership seminars and management training programs.
While all these changes were taking place, the old hands were also empowered — they became computer- and Internet-savvy.
Success factors
Several factors account for the success of Philippine Greenfarm Corporation and Philippine Fresh Fruits Corporation.
Foremost are the entrepreneurial genes of the main characters, starting with Luciano Sr. from the first generation down to Edward of the fourth generation. Hard work, perseverance, self-confidence and trustworthiness, combined with the unfailing desire to learn and to excel are core values that they live and breathe.
Commitment to high quality production keeps the customers coming back.
As Dicky says, “The Japanese are perfectionists who do not settle for other than topnotch bananas. These are fruits with very smooth, evenly colored skin, without specks, bruises, or dark coloration…”
Today, Greenfarm Class A bananas go to premium markets like Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and the Middle East. Meanwhile, the Class A pineapples of PhilFresh, are exported to the Middle East, South Korea, New Zealand and China.
Product performance is monitored in the eight packing houses located in eight different areas. Seven of these are for bananas and one is for pineapples. All banana farms are installed with harvesting cables, a propping system, drainage system, and supported by a road network.
A strong sense of filial duty to continue what their forebear started was and remains to be the umbilical cord that bonds the fathers and sons in their continuing quest for growth.
Life and living
When asked what Sonny and his sons do to sustain their energy levels, they have a common answer: They enjoy doing things together as one family.
Sonny, however, is looking forward to retirement, confident that the business started by his grandfather will be left in very good hands.
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The story of the Puyods is one of 25 featured in the University of the Philippines Institute for Small-Scale Industries’ “Dreamers, Doers, Risktakers — Iskolar ng Bayan Gives Back the Enterprising Way.” For more success stories and articles on how to start and improve a business, log on to http://www.upd.edu.ph/~issi.
