MANILA, Philippines — As a young team owner of the newest franchise in the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League, Jeao Diaz is known for his cool demeanor, rarely showing signs of emotions whenever the Ilagan Isabela Cowboys are playing inside the hardcourt.

He would normally sit behind the bench while watching his squad compete.

But just recently, during the celebration of Farmers and Fisherfolks Month presented by Landbank, the young team owner, who happens to be the president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the City of Ilagan and chief executive officer of the Sagittarian Agricultural Philippines Incorporated, Diaz took center stage as he shared his inspiring stories, best innovative practices, and actionable insights.

“Why farming? The contribution of agriculture to Philippine economy is stronger. It contributed 9% to the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in 2023. Chicken broiler production and chicken hatching composed of 20.4%, hog farming around 18.4%.” said Diaz, who was also invited in various notable events as one of the resource speakers.

The young entrepreneur saw  the potential of farming.

During the talk, Diaz also explained that Gross Value Added in Agriculture, Farm and Fishing grew by 1.2% in 2023, driven by higher chicken and hog production, and of course, through the wisdom of their founder, his father and current Ilagan City Mayor Jose Mari Diaz — Northern Luzon accounts 21% of corn production in the entire country.

Diaz and his family also created a farm for its dairy products, giving famers another opportunity to have additional resources for cropping season. Usually, farmers have two cropping seasons and by having this farm for its dairy gives the farmers an extra cropping season for them.

This farm produces dairy products from Mr. Moo, an organic cow’s milk that were used for producing other products like Fresh Cow and Carabao’s Milk, Kesong Puti, Probiotic Yogurt, Panna Cotta, Gelato Ice Cream, and Pastillas de Leche, among others.

Mr. Moo now has branches in Isabela, Nueva Ecija, Cavite, Laguna and Batangas and Metro Manila. Its products became benchmarks and recognized by the Department of Agriculture, National Dairy Authority and other private institutions. 

“When I assumed the role as president in our company, we initiated innovations that we are proud to say, that made globally-competitive corporation. But in order to  achieve this, we have to make changes in our policies and norms, strengthen our corporate governance.”

First order of business, according to Diaz, was to provide and quantify one million birds per cycle and 500,000 heads of chicken per month.

“This is necessary for us to compete against multinational companies and comply with the demands of our market. But to do this, we realized the importance of our technology, and from 2017, we were able to increase our production to 500%, we were able to cut our production by more than 20%, growing of chicken from 35 days to 28 days. All of these combined gave us higher margins.”

As part of the corporation’s growth,  Diaz also took the next steps of enhancing their Human Resources system, accounting system and standard operation procedures.

“By doing this, we came up with computer programs that enhanced efficiency. This is essential of course to maximize our resources, providing us not just quality, but safe production and that enabled us to get ISO Certification. Our quality management also gave us ISO 22000 for safety,” he said.

Sagittarian Agricultural Philippines Incorporated’s diverse line of businesses allowed them to forge partnerships with some of the big players and allowed them to attract institutional partners in the industry, among them include CPF (Charoen Pokphand Foods), Andok’s, Baliwag, Sr. Pedro, S & R and Kenny Roger’s Roasters among others for chicken meat.

Today, Diaz’s objective is for them to achieve 12 million chicken heads per year.

Sports remains in the lifeblood of Diaz, proof of that was Ilagan City was able to ink a deal with The Asian Tournament as host this August and his MPBL team's commitment to become better each game.

But even outside the hard court, Diaz had proven himself to be a winner in the agribusiness sector.