By Manny Pinol
Kidapawan City – North Cotabato farmers who planted rubber trees in their landholdings because of the prospect of good income are literally crying as the prices of this commodity once called the “White Gold” have dropped from as high as P100 per kilo of cuplumps to only P36 now.
The discontent is exacerbated by reports that prices of rubber cuplumps, which is the rawest form of rubber produce, are higher in the nearby provinces.
In fact, latest reports made by the Thai Rubber Association showed that rubber cuplumps price is at Baht 60 per kilo, roughly P83 in Philippine currency, while alibaba.com reports that rubber cuplump is traded in Bangladesh between $1,750 to $1,850 per ton or a high of P79 per kilo.
(http://www.thainr.com/en/?detail=pr-local. Note: Baht 1 is P1.39 in Philippine money.)
(http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/rubber-cup-lump.html)
Rubber, whose original Indian name is “cauchoc” or the weeping tree, is one of the agricultural crops, along with Oil Palm, coconut and banana, which I promoted when I became Governor of North Cotabato because of its earning potentials in the world market.
From a low of P6 per kilo of cuplumps in the 1990s, the price went up steadily as demand for rubber increased worldwide. At one time, the price of cuplumps reached as high as P100 per kilo.
As of yesterday, the price of 15-day-old rubber cuplumps in North Cotabato was at P36 per kilo and farmers expressed alarm because of reports that it will go down further.
The very low prices of rubber has far-reaching effect as the income of rubber farmers, including the tappers or the harvesters, has been reduced by over 60%.
A farmer whose one hectare farm produced 2,000 kilos of cuplumps every year used to earn as much as P200,000 per hectare per year.
Today, that same farm will only earn the farmer P72,000 which still has to be deducted with the 30% share of the harvester.
The low price of rubber has also dampened the demand for rubber seedlings as the planting of rubber slowed thereby affecting the rubber nursery operators.
Hundreds of rubber industry dependents have stopped sending their children to school while motorcycles and other household appliances bought by rubber workers because of very good income from their work have been repossessed by appliance companies.
The cries of discontent have become louder because of the perceived inability of the provincial leadership to address what could be considered as a crisis.
Worse, the incumbent Governor’s family which is one of the biggest rubber planters and monopolizes the buying of rubber cuplumps in the town of Carmen is being suspected of complicity in the perceived agenda by rubber traders in North Cotabato to keep the prices low.
Initially, the Governor, in previous media interviews, blamed the world market demand for the low prices.
But when confronted with reports of very high prices in nearby Zamboanga Provinces and in Thailand, she has lately blamed the poor quality of rubber cuplumps produced in the province as the cause for the low prices.
As the political leadership shows indifference to the complaint of the rubber farmers, the New People’s Army has embraced the issue backing the rubber industry workers in staging protests.
Unless addressed, the problems confronting the rubber industry could turn from a simple economic issue to a burning political issue.
(Image caption: This photo shows a rubber tapper or harvester at work. Photo downloaded from google search.)
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