3. 'Nuts Going Bananas'

After the farmers help wrote their business plan and later the operating manual for the trading center. They are now ready to trade, and this time, bananas and other crops. These are based on their capability to produce and needed by the market. Still they use the center as their storage area and office. The trading is run by a manager that supervises a classifier, a scaler, and four packers. The sales are recorded by a cashier and a bookkeeper. They’re paid daily on the 40 percent of their net income.

To keep their business going, diversified farming is introduced. Later, they’re able to expand the farms and the nearby villages supported them by offering their nurseries. Also, the farmers are given technology packets inside the operating manual.

In the actual trading, the local government is tapped to give the farmers technical and funding support. They’re to provide a loan equal to the money raised by the farmers as starting capital.

There is a renewed interest of the farmers as the group grows from 70 to 200 plus members. They collect membership fees and monthly dues, and they now have P10,000 pesos. Some members that aren’t able have to put in their salaries from routine maintenance of the barangay roads.

The farmers are able to sell 300 kilos of the 3,000 kilos of bananas per week demanded by their buyers. This is due to higher cost of producing bananas, however, they are able to stabilize price. Their bananas are good quality and bought at P5.50 better than P3.00 per kilo in the past. They’ve agreed that any price differential from 50 centavos mark up ceiling would be given to them when sold higher than the prevailing market price.

The total purchases made for nine months was P103,000 pesos against sales of P120,000 pesos and total net income of P9,000 pesos. This isn’t good but they believe that ‘business is business.’