DAVAO CITY – The market for organically-grown rice has now included the lower economic class despite its high price in the supermarkets, currently the main display centers of growers who wanted to promote public acceptance of the crop.
Restie R. Male, project manager of the Philippine Development Assistance Programme, Inc. (Pdap), said that the market has already cut across the economic classes down to “D”, the poorer section of society.
“That means that more and more people are getting to be conscious of their health, and would pay for their money's worth,” he told a regular Wednesday press conference at the Marco Polo Hotel here.
He said the growers of organic rice, the red and black rice, have opted to display their products in the supermarkets after a study they conducted indicated that more clients could access organic rice, including the muscovado, or brown sugar, in the shopping malls' supermarkets.
Price remained high, he said, selling at P60 per kilo when conventional well-milled rice is selling at P35-38 a kilo. Production cost though, is lower, at P20,000 per hectare, compared to the P30,000 per hectare of conventional rice.
Production though, remained low, with Mindanao producing the bulk for the market in as far as Metro Manila. “We can not supply the needs of clients yet in Metro Manila, even in the local markets in Mindanao where this is grown,” he said.
Organic rice is grown in Davao del Norte and Davao del Sur, and by two farmers' cooperatives in
Maguindanao “although other growers are found from Aparri in the north to Tawi-Tawi in the south”. “Mostly these are family-sized farm lots,” he said.
“There not many growers in Visayas and Luzon, and we have made a little inroad in Nueva Ecija,” he said, adding that Central Luzon, country's rice granary, remained as the major producer of conventionally grown rice that are dependent on inorganic chemical inputs.
Pdaf said that as of the 1.8 million hectares planted to rice, only 14,538 hectares are organic. “We're producing 6.8 million metric tons of conventional rice annually while we produce only 58,000 metric tons per cropping,” Male said.
“But organic rice consumption is growing by about 15-20 percent annually in the Philippines. Worldwide, the market for organic foods is also growing,” he said.
In the Philippines, vegetables are the widely grown in organic farms, he added.
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Davao City is most visited destination for Lakbay Aral
Duterte, Hotline 911 are main attractions
Davao City is most visited destination for Lakbay Aral
DAVAO CITY – At five visits each week, this city may be one of the most visited places in the Philippines under the “lakbay aral” program, a supposedly visitors' learning travel program.
The Community Relation Program Office of the city government has logged an average of five visits from local governments across the country under their Lakbay Aral program and from private groups and institutions.
Oscar Casaysay, office coordinator, said that the city has been receiving this many visits for several years already, and added that the city government has officially assigned his office to do the coordination work.
The size of the delegation varied, from a low of ten to as large as 300. “Many are really big delegations of more than 50 and 100. Many are councilors, provincial board members, vice mayors. Mostly government officials and personnel.”
“There are also from the universities, civic organizations, medical associations,” he said. “And there are many walk in delegations and they would just call us up for courtesy calls.”
He said that all these visits came from all over the country.
Most of requests were about learning about how the Emergency Hotline 911 operates and the best practices in local governance “but all wanted to hear and see Mayor Rodrigo Duterte in person”.
“While many Lakbay-Aral travels are believed to be junket travels, we assure them that they would really have a learning experience about the city, its governance and what to expect,” he said.
“We would ask them to sit down with us for a while, to listen to our briefing and to take them around to selected locations,” he said.
What also attracted, and surprised, the visitors were innovations in governance.
“They would be surprised and amazed that we have representatives from the tribal communities and that we have designated deputy mayors for the major Muslim groups in the city,” said Resci Angelli R. Rizada, this year's Mutya ng Dabaw, whose many duties also include receiving Lakbay Aral delegations.
Rizada said many local government delegations would suggest that “your mayor and his programs in the city should be shared to the rest of the country”.
“They should not be applied only in Davao City,” Rizada said, quoting a delegation from Albay, composed of councilors, provincial board members and members of the Sangguniang Kabataan.
She said a similar statement was aired recently by a Lakbay Aral delegation from Iloilo City, composed of councilors and their vice mayor.
“They wanted the mayor to run for President, and they assured that they would work for his election,” Rizada said.
Casaysay said that the visitors also “appreciated it at how we implemented the No Smoking law and they were interested at how this was implemented”.
He said that the city has not quantified the benefit of these surge of the study tours but he said that this has helped the city economy in terms of revenues as well as energizing further the activities of the travel and tour operators.
He said that his office has already accredited 20 tour operators in the city to provide the transportation needs of the visitors
“We have agreed with them that they take the visitors at least to the Museo Dabaw, the People's Park and the 911,” he said.
- 30 -
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Philippines joins global drumbeating of World Fair Trade calls Vs. unfair competition, poverty
RP has so many foreign investors already but it remains poor – Partylist solon
DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Contrary to impression that the country lacked foreign investments, a Partylist representative in Congress insisted on Saturday (May 9) that the Philippines, especially Mindanao, has already “a lot of them but why is it that we remain poor”.
“We have them already here, many of them a long time ago. In Mindanao, you can see them around, in mining, in the plantations. We have a lot of them here contrary to what we usually hear of our leaders always saying that we have to invite foreign investors,” said Rep. Luz Ilagan of the Gabriela Women’s Party.
Ilagan, who spoke during the drumbeating activity here on Saturday of the call of the World Fair Trade movement to stop unfair economic competition and end poverty, told reporters here the “wanton disregard of these foreign companies against the welfare of their host countries in the poor countries have wrought destruction of the environment and rendered crippled local entrepreneurs to develop a strong domestic business sector”.
“Why are we still poor, especially we in Mindanao where these companies have been reaping huge profits from our natural and mineral resources?” she said.
She said that the ill-conceived package of attractions given these companies should be reviewed “because what profit us if they are allowed to repatriate profits from their extraction of our resources and destruction of our environment, if they have not really brought improvement to our localities where they are hosted?”.
“This is the challenge to all of us: let us force our leaders to review our policies, to make investment policies that would protect our local entrepreneurs from unfair competition of foreign investors,” she said.
“Imagine this: foreign companies are allowed tax holidays and enjoyment of the land for 25 years while our local businessman are hardly assisted even to process their legal and business documents,” she said.
She said that the challenge “becomes all the more pressing because our own President is going around the world to convince leaders to accept our labor”.
“Overseas labor was supposed to be a temporary policy in the 1970’s but our leaders through the years have become so indolent as to be comfortable enough not to change it and adapt it as permanent policy,” she said.
Ilagan said that the call of the Word Fair Trade to stop unfair global competition between and among rich and poor countries, and their corporations, to improve the fight against poverty, “also find similar aspiration from among local business groups and chambers”.
“Fair trade and treatment is very strong among business groups in the country. We have long heard of them complaining about special treatment to foreign investors,” she said.
She added that the same advocacy could be gleaned from the local government units “which have been complaining also that they were not being paid well of the proper taxes accrued by these foreign companies which pay directly to the national capital region, and repatriate the biggest bulk of their profit”.
“Another big challenge for all of us is to force our officials to stop the continuing destruction of the environment because of their special treatment and incentives to companies engaged in extractive activities such as mining,” she added. “They don’t care because they are not from our country.”
“Their main motivation is profit and that is all,” she said.
Ilagan issued a similar appeal to the public who regularly stroll in the People’s Park here during the special late afternoon program to join a global and synchronized activity of the World Fair Trade Day (WFTD).
The Kaliwat Theater Collective, a commercial arts group here, performed songs and drama skits portraying low wages, labor repression and gender discrimation in the workplaces, and revived militancy of some songs in the mid-1980’s.
Ilagan, Councilor Edgar Ibuyan and former Councilor Nenita Orcullo later led the banging of gongs, bamboos and coconut shells “in drumbeating the call of the World Fair Trade Organization to beat poverty, climate change and economic crisis”.
Betty More, executive director of Katakus and organizer of the WFTD Big Bang!! said that Saturday’s activity was joined by similar cultural, political and economic gatherings in many cities in the country and 70 other countries.
A primer the group circulated said that the activity “is a human reaction to the World Trade Organization’s failure to beat trade injustice and social and environmental degradation”.
“This is a market response to failure in the financial system that’s left millions more people hungry, homeless, without health care and education,” the primer said.
More said that the global fair trade day activities were also intended to drum up support to the acceptance of a representative from the WFTO to sit in the powerful Group of Eight industrialized nations in the world. “With a WFTO representative, it would become now the G9,” More said.
- 30 -
RP has so many foreign investors already but it remains poor – Partylist solon
DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Contrary to impression that the country lacked foreign investments, a Partylist representative in Congress insisted on Saturday (May 9) that the Philippines, especially Mindanao, has already “a lot of them but why is it that we remain poor”.
“We have them already here, many of them a long time ago. In Mindanao, you can see them around, in mining, in the plantations. We have a lot of them here contrary to what we usually hear of our leaders always saying that we have to invite foreign investors,” said Rep. Luz Ilagan of the Gabriela Women’s Party.
Ilagan, who spoke during the drumbeating activity here on Saturday of the call of the World Fair Trade movement to stop unfair economic competition and end poverty, told reporters here the “wanton disregard of these foreign companies against the welfare of their host countries in the poor countries have wrought destruction of the environment and rendered crippled local entrepreneurs to develop a strong domestic business sector”.
“Why are we still poor, especially we in Mindanao where these companies have been reaping huge profits from our natural and mineral resources?” she said.
She said that the ill-conceived package of attractions given these companies should be reviewed “because what profit us if they are allowed to repatriate profits from their extraction of our resources and destruction of our environment, if they have not really brought improvement to our localities where they are hosted?”.
“This is the challenge to all of us: let us force our leaders to review our policies, to make investment policies that would protect our local entrepreneurs from unfair competition of foreign investors,” she said.
“Imagine this: foreign companies are allowed tax holidays and enjoyment of the land for 25 years while our local businessman are hardly assisted even to process their legal and business documents,” she said.
She said that the challenge “becomes all the more pressing because our own President is going around the world to convince leaders to accept our labor”.
“Overseas labor was supposed to be a temporary policy in the 1970’s but our leaders through the years have become so indolent as to be comfortable enough not to change it and adapt it as permanent policy,” she said.
Ilagan said that the call of the Word Fair Trade to stop unfair global competition between and among rich and poor countries, and their corporations, to improve the fight against poverty, “also find similar aspiration from among local business groups and chambers”.
“Fair trade and treatment is very strong among business groups in the country. We have long heard of them complaining about special treatment to foreign investors,” she said.
She added that the same advocacy could be gleaned from the local government units “which have been complaining also that they were not being paid well of the proper taxes accrued by these foreign companies which pay directly to the national capital region, and repatriate the biggest bulk of their profit”.
“Another big challenge for all of us is to force our officials to stop the continuing destruction of the environment because of their special treatment and incentives to companies engaged in extractive activities such as mining,” she added. “They don’t care because they are not from our country.”
“Their main motivation is profit and that is all,” she said.
Ilagan issued a similar appeal to the public who regularly stroll in the People’s Park here during the special late afternoon program to join a global and synchronized activity of the World Fair Trade Day (WFTD).
The Kaliwat Theater Collective, a commercial arts group here, performed songs and drama skits portraying low wages, labor repression and gender discrimation in the workplaces, and revived militancy of some songs in the mid-1980’s.
Ilagan, Councilor Edgar Ibuyan and former Councilor Nenita Orcullo later led the banging of gongs, bamboos and coconut shells “in drumbeating the call of the World Fair Trade Organization to beat poverty, climate change and economic crisis”.
Betty More, executive director of Katakus and organizer of the WFTD Big Bang!! said that Saturday’s activity was joined by similar cultural, political and economic gatherings in many cities in the country and 70 other countries.
A primer the group circulated said that the activity “is a human reaction to the World Trade Organization’s failure to beat trade injustice and social and environmental degradation”.
“This is a market response to failure in the financial system that’s left millions more people hungry, homeless, without health care and education,” the primer said.
More said that the global fair trade day activities were also intended to drum up support to the acceptance of a representative from the WFTO to sit in the powerful Group of Eight industrialized nations in the world. “With a WFTO representative, it would become now the G9,” More said.
- 30 -
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