#SupportFarmersPH – Help them Transport Goods!

On Sunday, April 6 marked the start of Holy Week. For a flower farmer like Mang Andoy, this event should give him enough to support his family’s needs. However, cancellation of events and mass gatherings has taken a toll on the income of flower farmers like him.

A set of harvest should be ready for the Holy Week, Mang Andoy said. An aster flower takes three and a half months to grow and harvest so it had to be targetted to bloom days before Palm Sunday. This year however, he started to pull out his flowers from his field in Los Banos, Laguna due to lack of orders from events organizers. The full bloom was not ideal as flowers would be too mature to be sellable even after the quarantine has ended.

Worse, the Department of Health ordered the cancellation of concerts or other forms of mass gatherings. In response, the Catholic church has cancelled all public masses and will proceed with the celebration of Holy Week unusually via online and through the television.

The flowers hence will all turn to waste, an expensive liability for Mang Andoy.

He estimates a loss of P60,000 for his supposed harvest in March and April. Their full income last Valentine’s Day was the input for this season’s harvest.

“Hindi tuloy ako mkatanim uli. Walang [pera na] pang-suporta sa patubig at mga pesticide, fertilizer (I am not able to resume farming again. I do not have money for irrigation, pesticides, and fertilizer),” Mang Andoy said.

He is now hoping for the end of the lockdown to be able to sell flowers on Mother’s Day. If the lockdown continues, it is another loss for Mang Andoy.

Mang Andoy is the first beneficiary of financial assistance from #SupportFarmersPH to help him kickstart his farm again and to make up for the losses.

“Hindi po ako makapaniwala… makakakilos na po ako uli sa bukid nang maayos (I cannot believe it. I can finally mobilize for my farm again),” he said.

Read the full story here: https://tagani.ph/community/1159-flower-farmer-fac...

We have now raised P48,350.00 (US$967) in cash! Your donations will go a long way. We are so grateful for your generous donations. Thank you for helping us continue our work in supporting Filipino farmers to stay resilient, especially during these trying times.

We also thank those who shared our campaign on social media: Jadine fans, Tom Reuh Tacwigan, Cropital, Cultural Vistas, and many more! From the bottom of our hearts, we sincerely thank you for using your platforms for the benefit of Filipino farmers.

Currently, we are contacting farmers (mostly from Cordillera) to whom we will donate parts of the money. We are also proactively collaborating with several local government units and organizations to help us bring the produce down to their communities.

We are very proud to say: our campaign made it work! (READ: Mayors who champion food security in their cities)

However, we will be very transparent to you. We are extremely challenged by high transportation costs, and we think the money will not last long enough to serve as many farmers we want to serve. We felt that these local quarantines will be a "new normal" for us for a long-time. While cash assistance programs can help in the meantime, it will not be sustainable—especially that the problem is bigger than us.

As a means to keep this initiative sustainable, we are now thinking of purchasing a truck that we will turn into a mobile grocery store.

What do you think? Is this a good idea?

Do you guys think this is a good idea?
— Tagani Philippines (@TaganiPH) April 3, 2020

We are currently in touch with the government of Benguet for transport of goods needing to be sold in Metro Manila. We were informed of the oversupply of womboc, pechay, and carrots at the moment. Parts of the the collected funds from donations will be used to offset transportation costs of farmers. Please continue to #SupportFarmersPH