Marketing strategy for farmers’ crops soon a button away – DAR chief
MEMBERS of agrarian reform beneficiaries’ organizations (ARBOs) can soon sit back and relax as the marketing of their harvests will be just a press of the button away.
The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) is embarking on a special marketing scheme that will feature online the finest products of various ARBOs and their members, profiling the dominant crops each of them is engaging in and when planting and harvesting season normally takes place.
DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III said the particular marketing project, dubbed: “Land-based digitization,” seeks to upgrade into a more comprehensive farmers’ registry the existing DAR database, which also includes information about the status of farmlands awarded to agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs).
Estrella tapped Undersecretary for Finance Management and Administration Jeffrey Galan to supervise the said project, which would give the public, especially the institutional buyers, an idea about farmers’ crops and when the harvest season is for them to make advanced bulk orders.
“Our main goal here is to spare, as much as possible, our ARBs from falling prey to unscrupulous traders and middlemen who are taking advantage of the peak harvest season to buy their harvests practically at a bargain price,” the DAR chief said.
He added: “Once our database becomes operational, it will be made available through our DAR website where stakeholders can visit, get in touch with concerned ARBOs and place their orders. It’s practically one press of the button away.”
Estrella said the land-based digitization is part and parcel of another special project – “the value chain boosting,” where members of an ARBO are advised to pool their harvests together to meet the demands in volumes of corporate owners of big fast-food chains and supermarkets.
“Since each of our ARBs is tilling an economic-sized farm, they cannot meet the demands in volumes of the corporate owners individually. But collectively, they can do it with plenty to spare,” he said.