This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VII, No. 3, Feb. 18-24, 2007
Breakup of Cartel, Price Control for Veggies
Urged
Farmers need built-in mechanisms for pricing, a researcher from a Cordillera
peasant alliance said in reaction to the agriculture secretary's bid to provide
Benguet farmers additional outlets for Manila consumers. BY
LYN V. RAMO BAGUIO CITY – Farmers need
built-in mechanisms for pricing, a researcher from a Cordillera peasant alliance
said in reaction to the agriculture secretary's bid to provide Benguet farmers
additional outlets for Manila consumers. Benguet is an upland province of the
Cordillera region, northern Philippines. Fernando Bagyan, researcher
of the Alyansa ti Pesante iti Taeng Kordilyera (Apit Tako or Alliance of
Peasants in the Cordillera Homeland) said that farmers face problems in unfair
trade due to the absence of government post-harvest assistance mechanisms.
Bagyan said that government
should manage post-harvest facilities if it were to extend genuine assistance to
farmers. Agriculture Secretary
Arthur Yap told Baguio and Benguet media last week that highland farmers should
learn to fight competition. He also announced that he would be opening 134 new
drop points for Benguet vegetables, implying the elimination of middlemen. The
bagsakan (outlets), said Yap, will get vegetables directly from farmers
and in turn distribute produce directly to consumers, cutting layers of
middlemen. “That way, farmers will get more for their produce.” Breaking the cartel Bagyan, however, said that
it would not be the farmers who would benefit from the trade proposal, because
traders will still be around between them and the end-consumers because of the
presence of what he described as a “vegetable cartel.” “All it takes is the
political will of government to break up the cartel,” Bagyan said, referring to
a shadowy organization of traders who allegedly control trade not only in
temperate vegetables but also other agricultural produce like rice, corn, sugar,
poultry and other livestock. “There exists no traders' organization but everyone
in the trade seems to have the same language.” The problem lies in the
government's inability to control prices, said Bagyan, as he maintained that the
the cartel dictates even farm gate prices. Yap and Benguet mayors
Nestor Fongwan of La Trinidad and Concepcion Balao of Atok visited the
Balintawak, Quezon City market, one of the largest drop points for Benguet and
Mountain province vegetables Wednesday and found that prices in the said
bagsakan are high. Cauliflower, for example,
sells at P40 ($0.83, based on a an exchange rate of P48.10 per US dollar) while
it is sold for as low as P12 ($0.25) in La Trinidad. Broccoli, meanwhile, sells
at P50 ($1.04) in Balitawak as opposed to only P28 ($0.58) also in La Trinidad.
Carrots cost P18 ($0.37), more than twice the P7 ($0.15) price in Benguet.
Prices are even lower at
farm gate, according to some farmers who said that cabbages cost only P2 ($0.04)
per kilo before the frost hit some parts of Atok, Mankayan and Kibungan in
January and February. Because of the frost, however, Benguet farmers opted not
to harvest, leaving the vegetables to rot in the gardens. Need for cold storage Aside from establishing new
drop points in the metropolis, the agriculture department also wants to
concentrate on post-harvest facilities such as cold storage for produce, which
Apit Tako welcomes. “Cold storage facilities
will help farmers because of the perishable nature of temperate vegetables,”
said Bagyan, who is equally apprehensive that if the government does not manage
such facilities, it would be corporate interests that would benefit from such
facilities. “Farmers and their families should also be taught appropriate
technology for storage and transport of produce.” Bagyan said that there is
“very little effort” on the part of government to put up cold storage
facilities. He said that the facility in La Trinidad is but a show window of how
government has been neglecting agriculture. “It should be available when farmers
need it, not just when businessmen could profit from it.” He said that if mechanisms
for the operation of the cold storage plant are not in place, farmers or their
families would only end up employees to multinational agribusiness that would
control the facility. “They will be hired as packers and cutters instead.”
Earlier, the La Trinidad
mayor said that there have been negotiations with Dole Asia on a cold storage
facility. Dole Philippines, he said, is considering a contract-farming scheme
with Benguet vegetable producers, providing them with “alternative livelihood”
when it sets up a cold storage facility. The Department of
Agriculture (DA)'s Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) program for high-value
commercial crops lists the establishment of cold chain and cold storage
facilities among its priority infrastructure projects. Under the program,
government encourages private sector investment in post-harvest processing, bulk
handling and cold chain facilities. The program shall put up terminal markets
and trading posts, including cold chain, bulk handling and grading facilities
established by the government and the business sector. Northern Dispatch /
Posted by Bulatlat © 2007 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat