Flawed Market System! Alamada Squash Farmers Cry As Price Drops P30 to P2/kg.

The story of a young farmer in Alamada, North Cotabato who was able to buy a brand-new pick-up truck after harvesting 75 tons of “Kalabasa” which was bought at P30 per kilo, started a Squash-planting frenzy among farmers who ended up suffering from massive losses as traders dropped the buying price to only P2 per kilo.
It was a classic story of the Pied Piper who led the rats to their death with a beautiful music and this is a farming story which I had heard over and over again in the Philippines.
Yesterday, Alamada Councilor Sanny Butig Pamli-ian, an Iranun tribal leader, brought me to the vast “Kalabasa” farms in Campo 11, Rangayen to show me prospective areas for Soybeans and Sorghum production.
I saw wide areas planted to “Kalabasa” because farmers heard of the story of the young farmer who was able to buy a pick up truck from out of his 75 tons of “Kalabasa” bought at P30 per kilo.
Now, some farmers opted not to harvest their “Kalabasa” anymore because the buying price of traders dropped to P2 per kilo and this has to be delivered to the highway where 10-wheeler Wing Van will bring the farmers produce to the Visayas for a hefty profit of at least P15 per kilo.
Is this Free Market at work?
No, it is the age-old exploitation of the Filipino farmers who until today had not been safeguarded by government simply because policy makers refuse to understand that agricultural marketing in the Philippines is difficult in a country of over 7,000 islands.
The “Kalabasa” which is being bought from farmers in Alamada for onlyP2 per kilo, sells for over P20 in provinces in the Visayas but given the difficulty and expense of shipping the product to these provinces, farmers are at the mercy of traders and middlemen.
Hindi ko alam kung kailan maiintindihan o pakinggan ng ating mga policy makers ang matagal ko nang inu-ulit-ulit na mungkahi or if ever they will listen at all, but I will keep on submitting this solution again and again that government should facilitate the marketing of basic food supplies because:
1. The Philippines is a Geographically Fragmented country with food production areas separated by vast bodies of water from the main markets. Hindi uubra ang “Laissez-faire” or a market free from government intervention because of this reality;
2. Government must draw up a National Food Supply and Demand Map identifying the basic food needs of Filipinos, the volume required monthly and the areas where food could be produced in huge quantity and where the areas where the supply is needed;
3. Government must establish a national food consolidation and marketing agency like the Food Terminal Inc., a government-owned and controlled corporation under the National Food Authority (NFA), which would engage Farmers and Fishermen’s through a growership or supply agreement of the basic food commodities needed by the Filipino families;
4. The same agency, NFA-FTI, should open Farmers & Fishermen’s Outlets in the urban centers where consumers, especially minimum wage earners and poor families, could buy fresh food products at prices just a notch higher than the farm-gate price;
5. The NFA-FTI could also serve as an export marketing agency of the government to ensure that excess production of farmers and fishermen would find a good and profitable market abroad.
This concept, which had already been implemented through working models like the DA Tienda, the MinDA Tienda and other similar marketing initiatives, will not only stabilize food prices but will also motivate farmers and fishermen to produce more because they have a ready market with a guaranteed price.
This will provide more jobs, boost the rural economy, provide poor urban families access to affordable and fresh food and also generate a modest income for FTI.
The Kadiwa Program would not work because it does not have link with the producers and it does not have an institutionalized system.
To all those who oppose this proposal claiming that this is government intervention and interference in the Free-Market System, I dare them to go to the countryside to see the suffering of our farmers and fishermen who had long been lured and victimized by the modern-day Pied Pipers, the unscrupulous traders and middlemen.
I also urge them to go to the wet markets in Metro Manila and the big cities to see for themselves, how the working masses buy fish or meat at 1/4 kilo simply because their wages are no longer at par with the prices of food.
Enough of the heartless “Free-Market” policies.
Maawa naman kayo sa mga Pobreng Pilipino!