Farmers make their co-op work

Farmers make their co-op work
By Tonette Orejas
Central Luzon Desk

First Posted 18:04:00 11/27/2010

STA. RITA, Pampanga, Philippines—There are cooperatives and cooperatives but 26 farmers here, two of them women, are doing things together differently. They rely little on government.

Registered in April, the Sta. Monica (Sta. Rita, Pampanga) Farmers Marketing Cooperative has one goal for its first planting season: raise the rice yield to 200 cavans a hectare.

“Target 200” is how they call their pet project, their second since the cooperative was established.

Their first collective undertaking in the village, known to old folks as Dampul, is a set of tests. For that, they planted 7 kilograms of “bigante,” a hybrid rice variety, on 5,000 square meters. With strong rains and wind brought about by Typhoon Juan damaging 30 percent of the crop, the produce totaled 56 cavans.

The sale from that, members’ capital contributions of P130,000, proceeds from the rental of a thresher and financial assistance from engineer Mario Panlilio increased the cooperative’s funds to P500,000, says Hilgardo David, the group’s chairman.

“We used part of that to buy seeds,” treasurer William Gueco says.

Farmers solicited the thresher from the Butil party-list group. They also asked the Department of Agriculture in Central Luzon to lend them technical assistance in the management of water and pests for the planting season, which they began on Saturday.

In a Mass held at the Sta. Monica chapel, they offered live chicken, vegetables, palay and carabao milk as thanksgiving.

“It’s going to be a transition for them, this planting of a new rice variety,” says Fr. Deo Galang, who celebrated the Mass.

Emigdio Guanlao, 76, the oldest in the group, says farmers in Sta. Monica stick to local seeds and old farming ways.

The youngest farmer is Jayson Cuenco, 30. The members, including Milagros Baluyut and Amelia David, owned 5,000 square meters to three hectares of land. These are either inherited or parcels under tenancy.

Water is either obtained from the National Irrigation Administration, deep wells or rains. The cooperative’s project will now cover 40 hectares.

“At first, we did not want to organize ourselves into a cooperative because previous cooperatives had failed in our town. They always failed because the government made us beneficiaries. We were not running our group,” David says.

“[But] we are [now] managing our organization. We [are] raising the resources we need,” he says.

Roy Imperial, DA assistant director in Central Luzon, says the cooperative started on the right footing by developing self-reliance and discipline.

All over the region, he says there are 150 active farmers’ cooperatives. More than 200 others are inactive for lack of resources or too much reliance on government’s support.

Panlilio, owner of the Mahogany Farm, a private farm in this town, says he helps in organizing farmers because he wants to help “change the cooperative culture.”

“This can be a business model,” he says of the efforts of Sta. Monica farmers.

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