With harvest in full swing at farms during the dry season, farmer-trainees of SM Foundation Inc.’s Kabalikat sa Kabuhayan are now looking for innovative ways to process their raw vegetables and sell their crops amid the Luzon lockdown brought about by the enhanced community quarantine.
SMFI’s assistant vice president for outreach programs Cristie Angeles said amid the challenge, “the bayanihan spirt lives on through KSK’s project partner, Maricon Mills who immediately gathered the [farmers’] unsold products such as chili, mangoes tomatoes and cucumber. To help the local farmers, the said social enterprise processed the products of our KSK farmers such as chili, made pickled mangoes and cucumber and turned the tomatoes into candies while the leafy vegetables were sold locally.
Aside from Maricon Mills, RiceUp, a social enterprise project that aims to empower Filipino farmers and allows them to directly connect with consumers, is also working closely with the latter and KSK farmer trainees to facilitate the purchase of KSK’s produce in Pampanga.