TABUK, Kalinga – The good news: The harvest of corn is bountiful. The bad news: Corn prices are down.
While the rains in July and August boosted the growth of corn, the rains during harvest season from Supertyphoon “Mina” and Typhoon “Pedring” were a bane to farmers.
Alejandro Paguel, a farmer from Barangay Cabaruan, this city, reported a high yield from a two -hectare corn farm but sighed with the prevailing prices of R7 per kilogram price for fresh or sariwa corn and P12/kg for dry which are much lower compared to the supposed buying price of corn as earlier promised by agriculture officials of the Aquino administration.
He said he has no choice but to sell his corn, or he could not finance his next cropping.
There is a need for concerned government agencies and local governments to come up with sustainable programs to ensure the consistent buying price of corn so that the farmers are not at a loss when harvesting their crops which they have nurtured over the past several months.
Traders interviewed attribute the low price to the rains when drying of corn is hardly possible in the open pavements, thus, the urgent need for the government to provide farmers with access to drying pavements that will allow the early drying of their corn produce.
This, so that it will be bought by middlemen at much higher prices to ensure that corn production will still be lucrative before the same source of livelihood will die naturally if nothing concrete is done to maintain its survival.
Alejandro Paguel, a farmer from Barangay Cabaruan, this city, reported a high yield from a two -hectare corn farm but sighed with the prevailing prices of R7 per kilogram price for fresh or sariwa corn and P12/kg for dry which are much lower compared to the supposed buying price of corn as earlier promised by agriculture officials of the Aquino administration.
He said he has no choice but to sell his corn, or he could not finance his next cropping.
There is a need for concerned government agencies and local governments to come up with sustainable programs to ensure the consistent buying price of corn so that the farmers are not at a loss when harvesting their crops which they have nurtured over the past several months.
Traders interviewed attribute the low price to the rains when drying of corn is hardly possible in the open pavements, thus, the urgent need for the government to provide farmers with access to drying pavements that will allow the early drying of their corn produce.
This, so that it will be bought by middlemen at much higher prices to ensure that corn production will still be lucrative before the same source of livelihood will die naturally if nothing concrete is done to maintain its survival.
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