By Manny Piñol
Five of the country’s biggest supermarket chains yesterday committed to buy direct from onion and garlic farmers in what could be the start of the struggle to dismantle cartels controlling these important commodities in the country.
SM, Rustan’s, Mindanao-based NCCC Mall, ShopWise and SaveMore will now source their garlic and onion supplies from the Filipino farmers.
All that was needed was one overseas call which I made to Go Negosyo head Joey Concepcion who has been appointed by President Rody Duterte as Presidential Adviser on Economic Enterprise.
Yesterday afternoon, while I was presiding over the SOCKSARGEN Agricultural Development Program board in Kidapawan City, I called up Concepcion to seek his help in addressing the problems of the country’s onion farmers.
Concepcion, who is currently in Paris, promised to immediately act on the problem and obviously made calls to his contacts in the Philippines.
That was what started the ball rolling.
Before 6 p.m. yesterday, Ginggay Hontiveros, Concepcion’s focal person for the Go Negosyo Program, sent me a message saying that Tessie Sy of SM, Nonoy Colayco of Rustan’s, Jojo Tagbo of SM SaveMore, Leah Lee of SM Supermarket and ShopWise have responded and committed to buy their onion and garlic supply direct from the farmers.
On my own, I also sent a text message to Riolinda Lim, vice president of NCCC Mall, a chain of about 20 supermarkets in Mindanao who said that brothers Javey and Lafayette Lim, whose family owns NCCC, have pledged to buy onion and garlic direct from the farmers.
Actually, I already had a previous meeting with the Lim brothers in Davao City about two weeks ago when I was working on the idea of giving fruit farmers direct access to supermarkets.
With this development, all that is needed now is for the Dept. of Agriculture to work out a system with which the onion farmers of the country, especially those from Bongabon, Nueva Ecija, will be able to deliver their produce to these chain of supermarkets.
The first thing that the onion farmers need would be a working capital which would be used in buying the produce of their members to be delivered to these supermarkets.
The farmers need a revolving capital because the supermarkets have a payment system which would not allow direct payment upon delivery.
The second issue that I would have to look into would be the storage facilities for the onion and garlic and perhaps delivery trucks so that they could directly bring their products to the NCCC Malls in Mindanao.
Last night, I instructed Undersecretary Bernadette Romulo to make arrangements with Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) head Jocelyn Badiola to prepare a substantial loan package for the country’s onion and garlic farmers.
Next week, I will personally meet with SM’s Tessie Sy and Rustan’s Nonoy Colayco and then make a trip to Bongabon, Nueva Ecija to talk to the onion farmers.
With this development, I am seeing the start of the liberation of the country’s onion and garlic farmers from the control of cartels who have monopolised the industry for ages now.
(Photos of SM, Rustan’s, NCCC Supermarkets and onion and garlic farmers downloaded from Google. Last photo shows me with brothers Javey and Lafayette Lim of NCCC and NCCC Vice Pres. Riolinda Lim taken during our meeting in Davao City two weeks ago.)
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