Hub for Luzon farmers’ fresh produce readied

After setting up a feeding center and a food bank in one of Manila’s poorest districts, conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) is taking its initiatives a step further by establishing a hub and marketplace for fresh produce from farmers all over Luzon.

Called the “Better World” sustainability project, it aims to cut the additional costs often slapped by middlemen and traders on food commodities by bringing the products directly to consumers and resellers at farm-gate prices.

It also hopes to address the slow repositioning of commodities in the country by bringing products to people and areas that have no access to food.

The project is a partnership with Rural Rising PH, a social enterprise dedicated to “harnessing the potential of the countryside and fostering rural prosperity through agri-entrepreneurship.”

The site is a property owned by SMC in UP Village, Diliman, Quezon City, and will be named “Better World UP.”

“The lockdown and restrictions in mobility have been especially hard on farmers. They’re unable to market their produce,” SMC president Ramon Ang said. “In some provinces, they’ve been forced to throw away a season’s harvest of vegetables simply because they can’t get their goods to the market or because restaurants have closed. The curbed demand has caused prices to plummet.”

While “Better World UP” will initially function as a central marketplace for fruits and vegetables, the two organizations said they would eventually develop programs to teach farming skills and cottage industries to interested farmers and consumers.

Rural Rising PH founder Ace Estrada said the property could also be used as a food distribution center where excess produce may be donated to urban poor communities that do not have access to nutritious and affordable food.

“You have all this waste —food being thrown or given away by the truckload or fed to animals for lack of buyers. In towns worst hit by COVID-19 (coronavirus) restrictions, you can smell tomatoes rotting in the ravines before you see the helplessness of it all,” he said.

“On the other hand, you have the urban poor of Metro Manila with little or no access to food. With this partnership, we are able to move produce that would otherwise go to waste, pay farmers the right price and bring it to where it is most needed, where it could do the most good,” he added.

The “Better World” initiative has been around since 2019, beginning with “Better World Tondo.” Ang, himself a Tondo native, established the company’s hub for its food relief efforts there. INQ