Friday, February 29, 2008 Farmers told to learn marketing
INSTEAD of relying on middlemen to market their products, farmers were told to learn the art trading to improve their living conditions.
Agriculture Assistant Secretary Salvador Salacup challenged Benguet farmers to market their own produce and take advantage of the interventions government is offering to improve their economic conditions.
Salacup said government has changed its approach to improve the lives of the farmers, and these include training them how to market their produce.
"Gone are the days when the Department of Agriculture (DA) merely provides farmers with seedlings and provide you farming brochures to follow. This time, we want you to be trained on how to market your products instead of merely producing them," Salacup told farmers in a recent stakeholders meeting.
He advised the farmers to maximize the market outlets the DA has provided them.
Salacup said there are 12 bagsakan centers in Metro Manila that were identified for the farmers.
The program aims to minimize the intervention of middlemen in the trading system to achieve a more stable price of agricultural crops by letting the farmers deliver their crops to these bagsakan areas and sell their produce.
"Rents of these stalls are being paid by the Secretary (Arthur Yap) for four months to allow them to learn the system of trading," Salacup said. (JC)
