SENATOR Francis Pangilinan has said farmers can supply the requirements of local and multinational food giants and increase their incomes in the process.
More than lack of capacities, Filipino farmers lack the confidence that they can meet the standards of food conglomerates, Pangilinan said during Thursday’s hearing on the Farmers and Fisherfolk Entrepreneurship and Development Act of 2016 or Sagip Saka.
Sagip Saka was Pangilinan’s program when he was on his second term as senator in 2012, when they partnered with the private sector to increase the income of select farmers’ cooperatives.
This bill aims to institutionalize that program, uplifting the lives and increase the income of farmers and fisherfolk through agricultural enterprise and development.
“From the norm of subsistence farming, we must move toward farming enterprise. Sagip Saka hopes to mobilize capital to the producer, the farmer,” Pangilinan said.
“We will be able to do this through a multi-sectoral approach. The government, the private sector, local government units, farmer and fisher groups working together,” he added.
Gisella Tiongson of the Jollibee Foundation shared how the program helped farmers reach their full potential. Sagip Saka and Jollibee partnered with the Kalasag Farmers Cooperative in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija in 2011.
“There is this lack of trust in our farmers, they themselves, and the other sectors,” she said.
Partly with Sagip Saka’s help, 20 percent of Jollibee’s vegetable requirements are now sourced directly from farmers groups, the Jollibee Foundation official said.
For Nestlé, Ruth Novales said her company was trying to change the mindset of the coffee farmers in Bukidnon, where Sagip Saka and Nestlé partnered.
The two-year partnership led to the tripling of the yield and income of the farmers.
“We want them to think as ‘agripreneurs’. We hope to make agriculture sexy again. Because unlike what is generally believed, there is money in farming,” she said.
At the same time, Rene Cerila of the Pambansang Kilusan ng Samahang Magsasaka (Pakisama) shared how farmers and fisherfolk need to think in terms of full-value chains.
Through Sagip Saka, Pangilinan said, government would be able to create the environment conducive to investments in agriculture.