Poor Boy Pays Back! Farm Worker-Turned Billionaire Sets Up Farmers’ Corporation

A former rice farm worker, who through hard work and perseverance became one of the richest men in Davao del Norte, is organizing the first ever Agricultural Corporation where real farmers would be stakeholders and co-owners.
Yesterday morning, I received an unexpected call from Tagum City, Davao del Norte-based businessman Larry Y. Rubinos, also known as LYR, who asked me to help him set up what could be the first farmers-owned agricultural corporation in the country.
He said that the Dujali Farmers Corporation will be based in the town of Braulio Dujali, Davao del Norte where as a young boy born to a poor family from Antique in Panay, he harvested and hauled sacks of rice walking for kilometers on rice dikes just so he could earn money to go to school.
Today, Larry owns a chain of motorcycle and appliance outlets all over Mindanao and a lending corporation where his employees and workers are shareholders and co-owners.
“Gusto ko balikan ang lugar kon diin nag-umpisa ang akon istorya sang kinabuhi,” he said in his native tongue, Karay-a.
(I would like to go back to the place where the story of my life started.)
He said he would like the farmers of Braulio Dujali become businessmen who will be involved not only in the production but also processing and marketing to get a full value of their products.
“We have to teach our farmers to become businessmen by enabling them and allowing them to co-own a corporation which will help them produce, process and market,” Larry said.
Larry said the corporation will finance the farm production needs of the farmers, establish post-harvest facilities to process quality rice and market the produce with a specific brand name.
“I will initially finance the corporation and Rice Farmers could become shareholders and co-owners,” he said.
Larry already has a template for this model and these are the companies he established where his employees and workers are co-owners and shareholders.
“This is my way of thanking the town and the people where everything that I have came from and all that I am started,” Larry said.
What a beautiful story of a poor boy who knows how to look back to where he came from.
#PoorFarmBoyPaysBack!