By Manny Piñol
At 7 p.m. tonight, Nueva Ecija’s onion farmers will break bread with the biggest names in the food distribution in a place many of them may not even have dreamed of having dinner – the multi-millionaires playground of the Manila Golf Club in Forbes Park.
The meeting tonight was arranged with the help of Presidential Adviser of Economic Affairs Joey Concepcion and Go Negosyo focal person Ginggay Hontiveros following the complaints of local onion farmers that they could not sell their produce as the market is flooded with low-cost imported onions.
Former congressman and senatorial candidate Martin Romualdez, a member of the Kapatid Group of Go Negosyo will be hosting the dinner in the exclusive golf club reserved only for the rich where the membership share costs no less than P30-M.
Joining me tonight are Dept. of Agriculture Undersecretaries Evelyn Laviña of High Value Crops and Rural Credit, Ariel Cayanan of Operations and Bernadette Romulo-Puyat of Administration and Marketing.
The onion farmers will be represented by five officers of the association of farmers based in Bongabon, Nueva Ecija led by board member Rommel Padilla.
The big supermarket chains and food companies expected to be present tonight are:
– SM Supermarkets led by the Chief Executive Officer Joey Mendoza;
– Robinson’s Group led by General Manager Jody Gadia and Lynne de Jesus of Fresh Products;
– Rustan’s and Shopwise Group led CEO Irwin Lee and Edgar Fernandez;
– Century Canning CEO Chris Po with Rex Agarrado;
– Shakey’s President Vic Gregorio and head of procurement Jun Abad;
– CDO CEO Jerome Ong and his team;
– Max’s Restaurant Group CEO Robert Rota and his team;
– Jollibee Group of Tony Tan represented by Gisella Tiongson and team;
– Puregold’s Lucio Co to be represented by his officers.
Tonight’s engagement will be the first effort of the Dept. of Agriculture under President Rody Duterte to play the role of a matchmaker between the farmers and fishermen and the institutional buyers.
For ages now, farmers and fishermen barely have direct connections with established buyers and relied mainly on traders and middlemen for the marketing of their products.
One of the reasons behind this is the fact that institutional buyers like supermarkets do not usually pay the products right upon delivery.
Since most farmers and fishermen barely survive hand to mouth, they could not afford to wait for the payment for a period of 30 to 45 days which is usually the time required for supermarkets to process the payments.
The DA, through the agencies under it, could very well play the role of a bridge connecting the farmers and the institutional buyers.
There are agencies under the DA which could provide the financing and revolving fund for their associations so that farmers will be able to get the payment for their produce right away.
Next in line in the program are fruits, vegetables and banana farmers and fishermen and shrimps growers.
(Photo showing the meeting with Nueva Ecija onion farmers yesterday taken by Bobby Capco. Photo showing Bongabon onion farmers downloaded from Google.)
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