The proponents of the EnHANCED KADIWA program of the Department of Agriculture Cordillera (DA-CAR) are being encouraged by the department to consider looking at neighboring Farmers Cooperatives and Associations (FCAs) including the areas in Region 1,2, and 3 as potential for market-matching of their products instead of focusing on Metro Manila as their major source of market.
In the forum workshop with operators of established market infrastructures held at the PCL Building at Wangal, La Trinidad, Benguet, DA-CAR Agri-business and Marketing Assistance Division (AMAD) section head Efren Lorenzo explained that the forum seeks to provide the proponents the opportunity to re-assess their present marketing and inter-trading operations.
“This is a venue for the FCAs and the local governments as program proponents to evaluate their present marketing and production operations and consider other market potentials within CAR and the neighboring regions,” Lorenzo said.
During the forum, DA-AMAD pointed out the potential of inter-trading as a possible initiative of program proponents to consider other markets available for product linkage.
Market linkages are intended to achieve the flow of produce between the different levels of the marketing system, with agriculture production (supply) as the input to the process, and the consumption of a produce by consumers (demand) as the output of the process.
“For example, the Pangasinan area favors the semi-temperate vegetables coming from Benguet which shows a potential market for our farmers. In return, the backload that our farmers can bring coming from this area may be fresh fish. There are other areas near the Cordillera region that we have identified to be un-saturated areas with potential for us to market agricultural produce coming from our area,” Lorenzo stated.
DA-CAR AMAD Chief Joan Bacbac reminded that the program proponents who were the recipients of trading capitals, packing facilities, and trucks for them to efficiently use the intervention that are meant to support the farmers in improving production, aside from efficiently delivering the products to prospective markets.
“These interventions that the government has provided you are based on the project proposals that you submitted, it is therefore incumbent upon you being the proponents to manage this efficiently. We highly recommend that proponents look at and consider market-matching and inter-trading among FCAs in the region and the neighboring provinces that the DA considers as un-saturated markets where trading is viable,” Bacbac added.
As part of the forum, the proponents were grouped to identify market-matching and inter-trading possibilities among themselves. By JTLlanes
