Three farmers associations in Dingras, Ilcoos Norte successfully marketed their 61 tons of mungbean harvest worth P3.8 million to Nutridense Food Manufacturing Corporation through DA’s market-matching activity.
The Department of Agriculture- Regional Field Office 1 (DA-RFO I) assisted the CSDCS Farmers Association, Lanas Timpuyog Farmer Association and the United Barong Kalawaan Farmers Association as the Nutridense company came to pick-up the mungbean harvest of the associations at Dingras, Ilocos Norte on March 21, 2021 in which cash payment was also made by the company on same day.
The production of mungbean by the farmer-partners of DA is part of the Research and Development project on Community Participatory Action Research (CPAR) on Mungbean Production led by the DA-RFO I Research group with tie up from the Agribusiness Marketing Assistance Divison (AMAD) particularly in facilitating the marketing of the mungbean on a three-year period covered by a Memorandum of Ageement with Nutridense and the farmers’ association involved in the project.
Under the said project, DA-RFO I provided the certified mungbean seeds and other production support, technical assistance as well as marketing assistance involving around 100 mungbean farmers of Brgy. Barong and Brgy. Lanas in Dingras, Ilocos Norte. Part of the training aims to enable farmers to produce their own certified planting materials to sustain the production of quality and high yielding mungbean varieties in the area.
Mr. Mark Ariel Agresor, Project Leader, noted the importance of providing direct market access for the farmers’ produce to encourage more farmers to adopt the DA’s production technologies on mungbean for increased yield and income.
Mr. Ferdinand Obrero, Secretary of the CSDCS Farmers Association expressed gratitude to the DA, the Provincial Government of Ilocos Norte and the Municipal Government of Dingras for the opportunity given to their association to increase their income especially in the assurance of market for their mungbean which has been a major concern of the farmers even in the previous years.
Providing them a direct marketing intervention through the Nutridense at a price higher than the usual market price offered by walk-in traders in their locality, Mr. Obrero and his fellow farmers are able to sell their harvest at P61.00/kilo of the “kintab” (classification) mungbean and P64 a kilo of their “labo”mungbean, which is about P9.00 higher than the P53.00 per kilo offered by walk-in traders.
“Buong puso kaming nagpapasalamat sa buong pamunuan ng DA, sa Provincial at Municipal government ng Dingras at probinsiya ng Ilocos Norte, sa patuloy na paggabay sa amin sa aming pagtatanim ng munggo. Tunay na malaking tulong sa amin na madagdagan ang aming kita na lubos na kailangan ng mga kagaya naming maliliit na mga magsasaka lalong lalo na ngayong panahon ng pandemya,” Mr. Obrero said.
Marketing is a constant challenge of most farmers in their farming activities because production of crops would be useless without viable markets to turn their produce into income. The market matching activity of DA through AMAD proves to be a crucial role of the department to put into reality DA’s vision for a prosperous farmers and fisherfolk. #
