Ate Glue was reported to have ordered Agriculture Secretary Art Yap to set up more Barangay Food Terminals (BFT) and bagsakan, or drop-off centers, in Metro Manila to cushion the effects on Filipino consumers of high oil-prices in the world market. This is a good program that directly affects the grassroots at this time of high prices than any tariff or tax cut on oil products.
This is a program of Secretary Yap that I found innovative in addressing the twin problems of low farm gate prices for farm produce and high retail prices of basic foodstuff in the urban areas. Thinking like a businessman, Secretary Yap determined the missing link in the supply chain. This is the role traditionally played by the notorious middlemen who abuse both farmers and consumers in the process of bringing foodstuff from the farm to our dinner tables.
Actually, getting government to step in the distribution of prime foodstuff is not even very original. The Marcos era had its Kadiwa Centers. Various administrations, including the early Ate Glue years have had their “rolling stores”. But it was only Secretary Yap who tried to institutionalize it as a means of addressing the need to increase farm incomes and decrease food costs of urban dwellers. He had to hit two birds with one bagsakan.
As Secretary Yap relates it, his bagsakan program was devised specifically to address the five major concerns of the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA): Food Security, Poverty Alleviation and Social Equity, Income enhancement and Profitability of Farmers, and Global Competitiveness and Sustainability by providing sufficient, quality and low-priced wage goods.
The Barangay Food Terminals (BFTs) is a barangay-based food depot and distribution system complementing the talipapa in selling commodities to low-income groups in depressed barangays. The BFT Project comprises direct marketing of fresh agricultural and fishery food products from food producers to the BFT for sale on a wholesale and retail basis, at a price lower than the prevailing wholesale and retail prices in the market. The basic food commodities include fish, chicken, meat, fruits and vegetables.
The BFT enables farmers to establish a direct and effective farm-to-consumer food supply chain. On the other hand, Bagsakan Centers provide the farmers a market for the bulk of their produce without passing through a multi-layered marketing system that almost always puts the farmers at the losing end. While the bulk of the farmers’ produce are consolidated and made available to the wholesalers in bagsakan areas, a portion of it goes to the BFTs in Metro Manila.
How effective is the program? Agriculture officials claim prices of vegetable, pork, chicken and fish in BFTs are P5-10 cheaper than in the ordinary markets. For instance (as of last Monday), while ampalaya is P60 per kilo in ordinary markets, it is sold at P40-50 per kilo in BFTs in Metro Manila. For carrots, the prevailing price is P50 per kilo but sold at P35-45 per kilo in BFTs. Pork (laman) is sold at P130 per kilo in BFTs while in other markets the selling price is P140 per kilo. Chicken is sold at P110-120 per kilo in BFTs and P140 per kilo in other markets. For tilapia, P80 per kilo is the prevailing price but it is sold at P70-75 per kilo at the BFTs.
Official documents indicate the Agriculture department has opened 25 BFTs in Mega Manila and 19 BFTs in the regions. For 2008, additional 24 BFTs are targeted to be opened in Mega Manila and 78 more in the regions. With the positive response from the regions, more BFTs will be established to cover mostly the priority provinces, particularly depressed barangays.
According to Yap, there are now 12 bagsakan terminals established by the DA in partnership with the local government units and market owners to include: Commonwealth Market, Mega Q-Mart and Oriental Wet and Dry Market in Quezon City, Mutya ng Pasig in Pasig City, Muntinlupa Public Market in Muntinlupa City, Marikina Market Zone in Marikina City, New Pritil Market in Manila, KADIWA Center in Valenzuela and Carmona Producers’ Market in Cavite.
Yap says 13 more bagsakan centers will be set up by July this year. Yap also said that some of these smaller versions will be set up in barangays Pag-asa, Escopa,Tatalon, Lagro and San Agustin in Quezon City, while some will be distributed in Pateros, BF Homes in Parañaque, Sta. Cruz in Manila, Pasay, Marikina, Malabon and Taguig.
The project is done in close coordination with LGUs. In fact, the LGUs must initiate the introduction of the project in their areas. It is the local executive who must select the recipient barangay or association and a strategically located site for the BFT that can cater to as many families as possible.
An important role of the agriculture department here is the provision of credit. They help growers/producers who supply agricultural and fishery products to the BFTs and Bagsakan Centers in Mega Manila and in the regions obtain credit with a loan facility at eight percent per annum interest rate so they can buy refrigerated or delivery trucks through the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC).
According to agri officials, a supplier of vegetables from San Ildefonso, Bulacan has procured a delivery truck through this loan facility. Other groups requesting for delivery trucks through this facility include: LIMCOMA Multi-Purpose Cooperative of Lipa, Batangas, Sentrong Pamilihan ng Sariaya, Quezon and San Cristobal Multi-Purpose Cooperative of Quezon.
On the other hand, the agri department, through the National Agribusiness Corp. (NABCOR) and the Bureau of Postharvest Research and Extension (BPRE), provides chest freezers and vegetable chillers including plastic crates to BFTs for free.
I saw how it works first hand. I rode with Secretary Yap’s Food Caravan sometime last year to Quezon’s vegetable growing areas and all the way to a BFT in Taguig. From the looks in the faces of Mayor Freddie Tinga’s constituents, the prices of the vegetable, some pork and a truckload of tilapia must be lower than in a neighboring talipapa. Multiply those happy faces in the other communities served by the project and government will start to have meaning in those people’s lives.
Farmers’ income
Here’s a reaction to last Monday’s column from a Pinoy expat in New York.
I did some research on the farm sector when I was still working in the UNDP. I still do this to some extent now that I cover food companies for Moody’s.
To be honest about it, I have never seen a farmer-entrepreneur model that is commercially self-sustaining from the farmers’ perspective. There are examples of partnerships between large companies and farmer communities.
Nestle, for example, has long-term supply agreements with coffee farmers in the Philippines and Africa. These farmers now earn enough to put three meals each day, but they are still poor and vulnerable to shocks like natural calamities, financial crises and political upheavals. The sheep farmers in New Zealand and cranberry farmers in the US wouldn’t be living the good life if they didn’t get generous subsidies and tariff protections from their governments.
Entrepreneurship is a win big – lose big game. We cannot rely on it to make a middle class out of thousands of poor farmers. I think scarce government resources for agriculture should be wisely spent securing our food supply.
For livelihood, we would be better off with massive industrialization, tourism and some information and health services. Shipbuilding, for one, triggered the industrialization of the UK and Korea. If we could get Hanjin to build two shipyards in our country, why not Hyundai and Daewoo? What happened to COSCO’s plan to build a major shipping center in Cavite? This will result in massive rural-urban migration in the medium term, but it’s a reality we’ll have to live with if we want stable income for more Filipinos.
It’s a surprise Here Dr. Ernie E.
A woman goes into a sporting goods store to buy a rifle.
“It’s for my husband,” she tells the clerk.
“Did he tell you what gauge to get?” asked the clerk.
“Are you kidding?” she says. “He doesn’t even know that I’m going to shoot him!”
Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com