The primary objective of putting up the Food Terminal Complex by the local government of Davao City with financial support from the Department of Agriculture is to help local farmers sell their produce without so much additional overhead so that they will be able to earn a fair income from their agricultural merchandise.
And how does the complex assist the farmers on this objective? As envisioned, the Food Terminal will provide storage facilities for the farmers to store their farm products while waiting for wholesale buyers. Unlike in the present system where those farmers who venture into bringing their produce like vegetables direct to the market, the usual thing that will happen is that they have to dispose of their products at give-away prices because at the end of the day they need to go home to where they come from. Otherwise they have to pay again for the rental of the space they occupy at the market; they have to have another round of paying for their meals for their extended stay in the city proper. So their most viable option is to dispose of their products at a price already dictated by the wholesale buyers.
These are among the problems of farmers in Davao City that the Food Terminal Complex in Daliao, Toril seeks to address. The question now is whether the intentions of the complex can succeed.
Of course everybody is anticipating the Complex to make good with its noble intention. However, it cannot be denied that there is still no clear existence of any support mechanism that will entice the farmers to use the facilities provided by the Food Terminal Complex. For one, now transporting their products to the storage facility is one big challenge. What with the high cost of fuel. Certainly the vehicle owners of trucking services hauling the produce from the farms which are mostly located in the rural areas including the uplands will definitely factor the fuel cost in determining their transport rate.
Hence, whatever the farmers can save from using the terminal storage facility which we assume, will be much lower than the privately-run farm product depository in markets like Bankerohan or Agdao, will only be eaten up or eroded by the upward adjustment in transport fare from the farms to the complex facilities.
Now, given this prevailing situation, and the fact that it is not certain how long will the farmer’s produced be sold at the food terminal complex, the strong likelihood is that they still will follow the beacon of the cash-wangling middlemen or direct “compradors” who go right at the farmer’s door steps.
Therefore, we believe that this form of derailing the food terminal’s best of intentions must be countered by the complex management. Say, the terminal policy makers might have to consider setting up satellite stations in areas like Marilog, Paquibato, or the uplands of Toril district where farmers bring their produce through a subsidized transport system by the food terminal to pick up and bring the same to the storage facility in Daliao. A lower transport rate can therefore be availed of by the farmers under this particular strategy.
The terminal may also duplicate the scheme of middlemen for bigtime traders which is advancing certain amount for the farmers to buy farm inputs like fertilizers and pesticides. The advanced amount can be recovered by the time the farmers bring their products to the terminal for marketing purposes.
In the absence of measures like the two , the farmers will continue to patronize the long-practiced way of disposing their produce – through the middlemen where they are actually indebted for the longest time already, perhaps dating as far back as it was still their parents who were tilling their farms.
Indeed if such support systems are not adopted by the Food Terminal Complex management we are definite that it is bound to fail in attaining its noble objectives. And the building, including the facilities inside it, has nowhere to go but grow into another “white elephant” of a multi-million peso government project.
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Now this one is unusual in the age of modern technology when feelings of dismay and depression could be distracted in so many ways.
We are referring to a couple in Norala, South Cotabato who earlier this week somewhat re-lived the immortal though fictional love story of Romeo and Juliet. Only, that the former lovers, the male character committed a crime by killing his wife first before taking his own. This was not the case of lovers Romeo and Juliet. In the latter’s case Romeo committed suicide when he mistook Juliet as already dead while lying seemingly not breathing.
When she regained consciousness and saw her Romeo already lifeless, the latter’s lady love took her own life.
And that is where the immortal love story started its journey to eternity.
The Norala couple’s incident? Well, theirs was a pure parricide and suicide, although it is equally unfortunate.
