THE MEANINGFUL LIFE
RACHEL RENUCCI-TAN uplifts the lives of farmers with low-interest loans and provides good, clean highquality rice in the market
Rachel Renucci-Tan and her rice revolution help local farmers and the agriculture industry; La Salle institutions join the country’s fight against the novel coronavirus
Rachel Renucci-Tan and her husband Patrick Renucci were happily living successful lives in Paris when Typhoon Yolanda was ravaging the Philippines. “We saw the images on TV of Yolanda really destroying the province of Leyte, and I realized we had to do something,” says Rachel, “we couldn’t just sit there and stare at the Eiffel Tower and sip champagne.” Feeling like they had to do something, they left everything behind and moved to the Philippines.
Their efforts were initially to help the province recover. During that period, they observed the abundance of rice fields, but lack of proper facilities. “We decided to help uplift the rice farmers of Leyte, help them recover from poverty brought about by Typhoon Yolanda,” says Rachel, “and then to produce world-class rice for the Filipino people by building the most technologically advanced rice processing complex in Southeast Asia.
Chen Yi Agventures, which produces Dalisay Rice is the first sustainable rice business on a mass scale in the Philippines, focusing on viable production and food selfsufficiency in the Philippines. The Chen Yi Agventures Rice Processing Center ( RPC) in Alangalang, Leyte is the leader in South East Asia, with a fully automated production process that is centralized and operated from touch screens. Temperature controls help keep the
palay fresh and ready for milling, a process that uses Japanese technology to purify the air, ensuring the air blown out is clean and safe to breathe in. “The local rice industry has no base standard for what makes good quality rice,” says Rachel, “for most other companies, they're not concerned about the quality, because for them it's about making profits.” She mentions the practice of mixing low quality, imported rice from Thailand or Vietnam that has been in storage for a few years with local rice, fumigated and sold in the market. “We have a different model, we believe in working with the farmers, empowering our key stakeholder, our producers of palay. We believe in quality, and we fight for it,” she says, “so even if our profits are not as high as the importers we stick to producing only local rice.”
Another factor that sets Dalisay Rice apart from its competitors is that they mill on demand. “It’s only when supermarkets and restaurants place a purchase order, that we mill, which means we never stock rice. What you buy is always freshly harvested, and not fumigated, because we have the technology that makes it unnecessary,” says Rachel.
BREAKING THE WHEEL
Pivoting from a different industry into agribusiness was a challenge, although Rachel says she and Patrick knew this from the very beginning. “My husband and I are entrepreneurs, and we have no qualms about executing on a vision and embracing the risks that come with embarking on a new venture and investing our own funds,” she says. What was difficult was changing the mindset of the farmers. “The situation of the Filipino farmer is that they have no access to capital. They're victims of poverty, victims of the vicious cycle of debt,” says Rachel, “they were entrenched in the mindset of borrowing from usurious lenders or selling their inputs to others to get the cash to repay their debt.”
To combat this, the Renuncci Partnership Program provides low-interest loans in kind to the farmer. “We provide high-quality seeds, fertilizers from Norway, full pest management control, and mechanization, and they pay us back in time, in palay, at the end of harvest,” says Rachel, “rather than worrying about their debt with us, by providing them these high-quality inputs with a low-interest loan, they can focus on planting.” Their extension support includes field monitors that check if farmers are following the prescribed planting protocol, applying the fertilizers, managing their fields, water, and pest control, mechanizing their land prep and planting their harvest.
According to Rachel, the average yield in Leyte is 40 to 50 cavans per hectare. With the help of the program, they expect farmers to reach 200 cavans per hectare, with their income increased by over 10 times. “For those that persist, they can put their kids through school, they could build a house, buy some luxuries like a television, or a car,” she says. When they first visited in 2014, Alangalang was a third class municipality. Today, it has moved up to second-class status. “The change happened around two to three years after we arrived so that means that the farmers’ income has come up and they have more spending power and were able to uplift the community,” says Rachel, “when we arrived it was just rice fields. Now they have a hotel, a Jollibee, two shopping malls, and a bank.”
CREATING VALUE IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC
Like all businesses this year, Chen Yi Agventures has had to deal with the disrupting force of COVID-19. Rachel shares that while there has been only 50 recorded cases of the virus in Leyte, the economy has been battered. This is because of the overall slowdown of business activity, especially in retail and the F&B sectors.
Having aided Leyte in their time of need during Yolanda, Renucci Rice is continuing their tradition of service to the province by purchasing palay from the farmers at a good price, despite the fact that most traders have stopped buying and instead are importing rice because of its cheaper price. “We remain committed to uplifting our farmers from poverty by increasing their productivity and their income,” says Rachel, “given that Leyte is predominantly an agricultural province, the increased income from farmers will contribute positively to monetary circulation in an economy ravaged by the effects of the pandemic.”
In Manila, they have managed to deliver nearly 500 metric tons of rice to supermarkets and private homes during ECQ, at risk to their production and delivery teams to make this possible. Since March, the production and logistic team have remained locked down in Alangalang and Makati to order to do their jobs. “They have not seen their families. They are all very brave and their commitment to our company is overwhelming,” says Rachel. Like their staff, Rachel and Patrick have also made their sacrifices: they have not seen each other since February, as Patrick is at the Alangalang production center.
This sacrifice has reaped benefits: unlike other major production businesses, Chen Yi Agventures has not had to lay off anyone. 98% of employees have been paid for the duration of ECQ/MECQ/GCQ. “We work closely as a team and roll together with the punches. We feel stronger and more effective, as a result,” says Rachel.
Rachel says that the valuable lesson in all of this is that business is about people, and not about money. “When we transact only for money, we don’t create value, making our business fragile and vulnerable to the negative impact of a pandemic, of economic shocks and other challenges,” she says. Profits must be earned with the idea of improving the lives of others, because it is all connected: by helping their rice farmers and employees first, as a consequence it will also help improve the life of every Filipino who can benefit from consuming delicious, healthy, world class rice. “[This ensures] our business gathers solid ground and can withstand the beatings along the way to enduring success,” says Rachel.
SUSTAINABILITY OVER PROFIT
When they left behind their cushy life in Europe, most of Rachel’s friends did not understand, “They thought I was crazy,” she shares, “I didn’t get much empathetic understanding. But we persisted.” Their persistence began to bear fruit when they started soft selling Dalisay Rice to their friends, all of whom said it was the best rice they had tried in their lives. “We were encouraged by that, and then with no distributor, we single-handedly were able to penetrate 150 supermarkets on our own, and the sales are doing well. We're frequently sold out,” says Rachel.
Last year, they were awarded Third Place by The Rice Trader’s World Rice Conference, with a contest conducted by international chefs who inspected the visual and sensory aspects of the rice (both pre-cooked and cooked). “For the first time ever, the Philippines was awarded as a top producer, instead of just being the world's largest importer of rice,” says Rachel, “so this award should make every Filipino proud.”
In the future, Chen Yi Agventures plans to increase the number of farmers they work with, with a focus on expanding with Leyte. While other producers might focus on protecting their operation, Rachel is happy to share their process for replication across the Philippines. “We shouldn't be the only ones doing this, and I think everyone should be willing to take a hit on their profits to be able to produce clean high-quality rice,” says Rachel, “and if everyone does it, then we don't need to import as much. Then we can claim back profitability for local producers. So it should be a long-term play rather than a shortterm gain.”
A meaningful life for Rachel is one where she has the ability to have an impact on the community and in her country. They chose to focus on rice because it is the most basic staple in the Philippines. “We wanted to provide the most basic grain for every Filipino, which is rice, and not just any kind of rice but world-class rice,” she says, “being able to do that and see the impact for Filipinos, so they can have access to good quality world-class rice and see the impact on the farmers with their increased income and uplift their lives is the most rewarding.”