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.’

2. 'Nuts Going Bananas'

The first venture was a botch and the group failed to get back their capital. The rats continue destroying their peanuts. Too bad! The center stops loaning those seeds. There’s no solution to infestation. They’re faced with so many impossible problems that they decided to clamp down the center.

Two years later, my agency wanted to intervene again. I’ve told my bosses that the reason they aren’t able to meet the required volume is that they didn’t synchronized planting and harvesting. Also, obviously, the farmers are most familiar in trading individually than involving them is collective marketing.

My bosses agreed to hire consultants to assist these farmers. This time, I meet Agrifina, our consultant and later becomes one of my best friends in development work. I told her everything about the group in Palo 19.

We gathered the group in the center. I introduce them to Agrifina and her team. We talked lengthily with them about reviving the center. First, we tackled the issue on rats. Leo, a technologist in her team is there to help them solve rat infestation. Later, he teaches them synchronized farming. And then, we looked into their plans since we knew that they’ve formulated some in past. They’ve noticed that the center was originally intended to be a storage facility to all of their products and not limited to peanuts only.
After several meetings with them, we’ve observed their renewed sense of ownership to the center. We pushed them further to draft a business plan for the center, and later, a manual to operate. They find these documents very useful after realizing that we wouldn’t be there always. They would be the ones implementing their plans not us.

1. 'Nuts Going Bananas'

The story of Palo 19 is about a group of farmers operating a trading center. They’re neophytes in business that’s why I was sent by my agency to assist them, as specialist in marketing and developing enterprise. They failed (!) or we (?) since I was responsible for them.

Actually when I went to the place they already had a contract with a peanut buyer. The buyer wanted ten tons of peanuts at fifty pesos per kilo to be shipped to him in Manila. But, they weren’t able to produce what was demanded from them. Their reason was rats infested their peanuts. And, they decided to sell their remaining peanuts to local buyers at the town center at thirty pesos per kilo only. The ‘botched’ trade somehow dwindled their interest in planting peanuts. The center wasn’t able to recoup the capital and since then has difficulty in its operation, and eventually shutdown in 2002.

Two years later, my agency, a Philippine-European aid program, has been assisting Palo 19 since 1999, decided to intervene again.

Palo 19 is one of the smallest barangays in Tampakan, a town in South Cotabato. At the top, it has 1,111 hectares devoted widely to farming. They plant banana, corn, coconut, root crops, and vegetables. They’re mostly migrants who decided to settle in the place for lack of gainful opportunities in the lowlands.

In my report after my stint there I mentioned about the possibility of reviving the center. I said to my bosses that this could only happen if we hire business consultants to help them stabilize its business operation by finding new market for its bananas and other crops.