The opening of the Davao Food Terminal Complex (DFTC) will help small farmers market their product, City Agriculture Officer Leo Brian Leuterio said.
The DFTC is set to be opened on March 15 after its soft opening in October 2018.“The novelty of the approach of the DFTC, with the farmers group organized is that, once the farmer delivers goods, a farmers’ group will immediately buy it and take the responsibility of marketing it for a certain price adjustment,” said Leuterio.
“Our farmers will no longer have to wait for the whole day for their products to be sold,” he added.
According to Leuterio, they will put priority to farmers who will sell in DFTC.
“We work with a cooperative of farmers that represent the small ones. We have no issues with the traders but we welcome more the small farmers,” he said as the agency has raffled off the 18 stalls to those who will occupy them and that they will pay P16 per square meter of the 15-square meter stall.
On Tuesday, the city council passed an ordinance on the rates and charges of the said ordinance.
“The technical working group has been around the country to look for cities with ‘bagsakan’ where we conducted surveys for the cost and took rates from them,” said Leuterio.
He is hoping that the grand opening will turn out well since they have long prepared for this.
“We had our soft opening for the mechanism and other details. We made a drill on some operations like the unloading of commodities from the truck, sanitation and others,” he said.
Dignitaries are expected to attend the opening. “We have invited Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, and other leaders of the Department of Agriculture. We also invited Mayor Sara Duterte,” he said.
Leuterio also added they are still ironing out transportation services for the farmers.
“The city government and the Department of Agriculture plan to assist farmers on transportation needs.
On the city’s end, nothing is certain yet but we are hoping to get the approval under the special budget 1,” he said.
