3 business tycoons pledge support for rice farmers

MANILA - Three of the country's biggest corporate moguls have pledged to buy the rice requirements of thousands of employees of their corporations from the country's rice farmers.Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala of the Ayala Group, Manny V. Pangilinan of the MVP Group of Companies and Ramon Ang of San Miguel Corporation said they would be very happy to support Department of Agriculture's program of directly linking farmers to the buyers of their products.I actually just chanced on the three tycoons during the dinner tendered by President Rody Duterte for visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Thursday night in Malacañang.They were among the big names in the Philippine corporate world who were invited to the welcome dinner for the Japanese Prime Minister.I did not let go of the chance of talking to the three business tycoons and presented to them the DA's program of finding market for the Filipino farmers' produce.All three of them pledged to buy the requirements for the monthly rice allowances of their corporations directly from rice farmers cooperatives and associations.Most of the country's top corporations provide monthly rice allowances for their employees but almost all of them source their rice supply from commercial sources.San Miguel Corporation, MVP Group of Companies and the Ayala Group of Companies employ thousands all over the country and they could be profitable market for the produce of the country's rice farmers.Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala even promised to visit the Department of Agriculture Secretary personally to discuss the details of the rice supply program and other possible ways his big business conglomerate could support Filipino farmers.The direct marketing scheme of farmers produce is being pushed by the Dept. of Agriculture to enable farmers to earn more from their hard work.Farmers, especially those who plant rice, have always been at the mercy of traders and middlemen who manipulate the prices and make more money from the hard work of the producers themselves.The DA has already linked up Nueva Ecija's onion farmers to the big supermarkets and canning factories while fruit producers are also being engaged with institutional buyers in Metro Manila.