Agrilink leaders move to help increase incomes at farm level
The organizers of the country’s biggest and most prestigious annual international event on agribusiness, food and aquaculture are taking steps to help raise the country’s income at the farm level.
This was revealed by the Foundation for Resource Linkage and Development (FRLD) and other co-organizers of Agrilink, Foodlink and Aqualink.
FRLD president Antonio V. Roces said the government and the private sector had agreed that the very thin profit margins of farm produce could be addressed through value adding right at the source and forming alliances between farmers and integrators/processors for that purpose.
“It is very crucial that low profitability at the farm level be addressed urgently since it poses a big disincentive to agricultural productivity,” Roces stressed.
“To solve that problem, the Department of Agriculture has been encouraging value-adding — from its simplest form of graded, weighed and priced single product packages all the way to ready-to-cook vegetable mix for chopsuey, pinakbet or sinigang, and even up to packaged pork cuts,” Roces explained.
For value-adding to be successful, however, market alliances must be formed to ensure adherence to common quality standards and make the product really more valuable to the end-users, whether locally or abroad, according to Roces.
“Such alliances can better assure retailers of consistent supply and quality while better ensuring profitability for the producers,” Roces added, citing as example the feat of the Northern Mindanao Vegetable Industry Association, which enabled small farmers in the region to market their temperate vegetables in Metro Manila groceries.
Nonetheless, setting uniform quality standards in product handling to create value and ensure freshness can be very technical, requiring farmers and the rest of the industry to acquire the appropriate technologies for each product line at every stage of the process.
In addressing this concern, Roces said they had lined up a series of seminars on the matter, which would be held during the staging of this year’s Agrilink, Foodlink and Aqualink at the World Trade Center Metro Manila on Oct. 4 to 6.
“The seminars will include the latest techniques in value-adding at every phase of food preparation and packaging before reaching the end-user, and which sectors should be allied in the process,” Roces pointed out even as he ruled out any major realignment in the supply chain.
Other details can be obtained from the FRLD (tel. 8384549, 8384852; fax 8384573, or email [email protected]).
“The important thing is, all the industry sectors will be in our triple event (Agrilink/Foodlink/Aqua-link) for the forging of such alliances,” Roces added.
Last year, the triple event had 210 exhibitors, including foreign firms. This impressive 20 percent increase since 2004 shows the event’s huge success in bringing all the sectors of the agribusiness industry under one roof and in helping them attain their market goals.
For this year, an even bigger number of exhibitors and visitors are expected at Agrilink/Foodlink/Aqualink, which will feature agricultural chemicals, animal housing and breeding, health and nutrition, aquaculture equipment and inputs, communication and information technology, dairy products, machinery, cooling, storage and post-harvest facilities, feeds and feed ingredients, feed milling, fertilizers and pest management, financial institutions, fishery products, food ingredients and additives, food processing and packaging, fruits and vegetables, greenhouse and nursery, horticulture inputs, meat products, organic farming and hydrophonics, publications, research and consultancy, seeds and planting materials, irrigation systems, transport and logistics, and waste management, among many others.
Coorganized by some 20 mational trade associations, the event is supported by the Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural & Fishery Council, Bureau of Fisheries & Aquatic Resources, French Chamber of Commerce in the
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