Confronting the monster FARMERS, TRADERS, BUYERS AND THE INSATIABLE GREED

By Manny Piñol

In the ideal world, farmers are supposed to make money producing food, the traders bring it to the market making a little profit for the effort and the consumers enjoy affordable food.

All three of them end up smiling and happy.

That is not the case in the real world, however.

The Food Supply Chain in the country today is controlled and even to some extent manipulated by the merchants and the traders.

It is the trader who determines how much the price of farmers produce is and it is still the trader who dictates the cost of the food in the market.

In the real world, farmers are poor and the consumers are sad as they stretch their budget for food but the traders rake in the money, ride in luxury vehicles and lead lavish lifestyle.

Here are some of the blatant anomalies in agricultural pricing and selling:

– Raw rubber prices have plunged from over P90 per kilo a few years ago to only P20 per kilo today. Yet, the price of a pick-up rubber tire has gone high to almost P10,000 per piece;

– Palay buying price is at P17.50 per kilo but good quality rice is sold at almost P40 per kilo.

– Oil Palm fresh fruit bunch (FFB) is bought at P3.60 per kilo in the Philippines but the price in Malaysia is P5.60. In spite of this, Palm Oil is still being smuggled to the Philippines;

– Hogs are bought at P90 per kilo live but pork sells as much as P150 per kilo in the market;

– Traders buy Agar-agar from seaweeds farmers for only P2 per kilo but the Cebu-based processor buy the dried carageenan for over P30 per kilo.

I could go on and on to emphasise the great increment between the money the farmers earn for their hard labor and the cost of food the consumers pay.

Government has tried its best to address this anomaly for ages now.

There is the support price for Palay and Corn and the price control in the sale of food commodities in the market to ensure that the costs do not go beyond the capacity of the consumers to buy.

These measures have largely been ineffective and this is mainly because of the greed which consumes many of the traders who have formed themselves into cartels.

So how do I intend to address this problem to deliver President Rody Duterte’s promise of Available and Affordable Food?

First, the Department of Agriculture under President Duterte’s leadership will support the farmers and fisherfolk to ensure that their cost of production is lower and their yield or catch is increased.

Second, there has to be a way to lessen the Middlemen’s level of control in determining the buying and selling price of food commodities.

This could be done by turning farmers and fishermen into small entrepreneurs themselves giving them direct access to the market.

I have brought in an undersecretary, Pompee La Viña, whose expertise is in Entrepreneurial Management and I have tasked him to lift up the poor farmers and fishermen to the level of entrepreneurs who will sell their products directly to the consumers.

For Rubber Farmers, for example, I would like to see them grouping themselves and forming a company or corporation which would get involved with the processing of their rubber products and start the manufacturing of bicycle, motorcycle or car and pick tires at the farm level.

For the Rice Farmers, they too could be organized and given the necessary support so that they will have their own Rice Processing Centers at the Farm Level.

The Rice Farmers could then be linked up with big corporations who could buy the rice directly to be supplied to their employees.

It is not even remote that I would one day suggest to President Duterte that each government employee a monthly one sack rice allowance and the rice would be bought directly from farmers groups.

The message of this post to the Traders is this: I understand your business but do not be too greedy.

Stop squeezing the farmers and fisherfolk dry and making life hard for the consumers.

Just remember this, we have a President who thinks out of the box.

If you cannot control your greed, you may end up holding an empty sack.

(All photos, except the photo showing my brother, Col. Pat, showing a prolific rubber tree, were downloaded from Google.)