Pro-vampire garlic prices?

When prices of locally grown garlic hit P300 a kilo, a number of people became quite vocal along with several news organizations that centered their reports on the price increase, without really doing a scientific or input based study on the possible causes. Even friends on Facebook were posting their protests at what many made to appear as shocking. Sorry to say this but my sympathies lie with the poor farmers who’ve always received the low price and the short end of the stick.

First of all the increase in prices is the effect of “supply and demand.” The government effectively curbed garlic smuggling, and as a result we now discover that there is not enough garlic currently grown locally to meet the demand. The reason that is so is because most of us preferred to buy CHEAP and BIG, meaning smuggled Taiwanese or “made in China” garlic. So the local farmers had no reason to grow more than they could sell. Now that supplies are short, some people are evidently willing to pay P300 per kilo of garlic, or the prices would not go that high. As my wife Karen always tells me about pricing: “The price of anything is what someone is willing to pay for it.” Even if there was a cartel, they can only horde something as long as it retains its value. When people refuse to pay, the prices ultimately fall.

I pointed out to some friends that they are in shock because they have continuously benefitted and preferred the BIG and cheap garlic that are generally smuggled into the country by unscrupulous people. Don’t call them traders because they are not. They are smugglers. Then there is the issue of those imported products being subsidized by the communist system of China and produced by cheap labor in the commune.

Anyone of you who has done any type of planting, farming or even gardening for a day, a week, or a month, all call it “back breaking” even if we actually do it as a hobby or for “fun.” The process of soil preparation, buying fertilizers, seed stock or “bulbs” in the case of garlic, the cost of pest control, the months of care, the labor that goes into growing garlic costs a lot of money and there are absolutely no guarantees that your garlic will be plentiful. Not every province and just anybody can grow garlics. There is a limited area and limited season to do so. Then after all is said and done, the farmer has to deal with the consolidator or their buyers who will nickel and dime them and buy their garlic wholesale but low priced. Everybody wants garlic but everybody wants them cheap!

How would you feel if everybody declared that your services or skills should have a price cap? How would you feel if everybody simply assumed that you were making a killing without investigating? That my friends, is the problem; we want the goods but we are not willing to pay the real price.

[Why should our pleasure always be at someone else’s expense? Why should the least or the poor always have to pay the price? ]

To me the glaring example is when Filipinos go shopping especially when they have visitors from abroad. When we take visitors to malls or department stores, there is “no tawad” or no haggling on prices. We dutifully bring out the cash or the credit card without any second thoughts. But why is it that when we go to public markets, tiangge, or sidewalk vendors, we don’t just make “tawad” we make “barat” or shamelessly chisel down the poor vendor who probably makes no more than P5 or P10 on the sale?

Three hundred pesos a kilo for garlic may seem a lot, but so does the load on a prepaid card, a cup of brewed coffee that has the equivalent of 2 tablespoons of Kape Barako is over a P100, car parks charge a minimum of P30 and go up to P60 for 3 hours, we pay P350 to P500 for an hour of massage and many ladies spend more per week to have their pretty nails done. Everybody talks about CSR: Corporate Social Responsibility. Perhaps we should give a second definition to CSR: Christian Social Responsibility to pay a man his just wages.

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If anything the declaration of a “state of calamity” and the unorthodox or extra-ordinary decision to place two heads in the Department of Agriculture tells us that the President has a keen interest in agriculture and that he will act if no one else will.

Better late than never, and just in case no one has given the President a proper “thank you,” I express my appreciation that P-Noy stepped into the Coconut Scale Infestation crisis. Knowing all the facts and the seriousness of the problem, many people will certainly appreciate the President’s decision to declare a “state of calamity” in the CALABARZON and parts of Bicol. By doing so all the usual “red tape” and delaying protocols can be dispensed with to find solutions. This will undoubtedly allow anybody and everybody to adopt the battle cry of Senator Cynthia Villar: “In the absence of anything – lets do everything.”

I also want to acknowledge the wisdom behind P-Noy’s decision to appoint former Senator Kiko Pangilinan as the Second Secretary of the Department of Agriculture. In the short time that “Sec. Kiko” got into the picture, I have seen the benefits the former Senator brings as he easily has access and favors with current members of Congress and the Senate as well as those in the President’s Cabinet. I also learned that Sec. Kiko has a very “inclusive style of management” and will listen to people who can contribute and come up with sensible solutions. Even with little time left in the P-Noy administration Sec. Kiko can still contribute a lot to various areas of Philippine agriculture as ambassador and legislative liaison between “farmers,” Malacañang, and Congress.