Gov’t turns to e-commerce to overcome agri bottlenecks
Transportation bottlenecks in the farm sector have long been there, but it took a pandemic to expose how bad the situation is – from agriculture commodities rotting in fields due to oversupply to surge in farm prices in the metro because of a shortage.
The issue in the oversupply was too bad that vegetable farmers in the province were either forced to give away their produce for free or dump them beside the river, while the government had to impose a price freeze on select agriculture products as well as extend its suggested retail price (SRP) scheme to stop the prices from rising in Metro Manila.
"Aside from the collapse of farmgate prices, the behavior of LGUs [local government units] since March 16, 2020 has brought despair to our members that I have not experienced before," United Broiler Raisers Association (UBRA) President Elias Jose Inciong earlier said.
To recall, the lockdown due to COVID-19 restricted delivery of food and agricultural goods, sending a large volume of agriculture products to waste. This resulted in consumers in the city to suffer from higher prices.
The good thing is it didn’t take too long for the government to somehow figure out the answer. And it’s the internet.
On May 4, the first governmentled agriculture digital marketing app in the Philippines was launched in a bid to give Filipino consumers direct access to farm products amid the pandemic.
The "eKadiwa.da.gov.ph", which will help sell products like fresh vegetables, fruits, meat, fish and many more, is the first online digital platform of the Department of Agriculture (DA).
The launch is part of the DA's food security and resiliency initiative under the “Plant, Plant, Plant” program, a ₱31-billion initiative yet to secure full funding from the national government.
DA’s merchants for the app include Farmshare Prime Dairy Products, Livegreen International, Inc., Farmfetch, Inc., Banwa Farms/Cultigen Corp., Abalayan Trading, RAM canned products and condiments.
They are on top of AgriNurture, Inc., Zagana, Inc., Benjabi Ventures Corp., and Mober, Inc.
DA is now scouting for more partners, especially individual farmers and farmers’ cooperatives who may want to sell their produce directly using the app.
Agriculture Secretary William Dar earlier said the launch of the e-Kadiwa platform paves the way to the digital transformation and automation of the DA, in its journey towards "Agriculture 4.0" that focuses on precision agriculture, Internet of things (IoT), and use of big data to attain efficiencies in the food value chain, amid rising populations and climate change.
Agriculture 4.0 is a concept of the future of agriculture focusing on use of technology for business efficiency, according to the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA).
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations
said that digital agriculture is important in transforming agriculture and food production because it improves the stakeholders' access to information, inputs, and markets and streamlines supply chains, resulting in lower operation costs, among others.
It provides tools and information for decision-makers to improve productivity and cost-efficiency.
DA assistant secretary for agribusiness and marketing Kristine Evangelista said that over the longterm, the DA wants to maximize the e-Kadiwa platform to buy more produce from the farmers and further improve the country’s food supply chain.
According to her, the agency does not just intend to have the list of farmers’ produce and help them bring them to the market. The plan is to also record planting intentions so that even before the yield gets harvested, the DA could already find a market for them.
"In all, digitizing agriculture is also a way of attracting more young people and agripreneurs to engage in farming, fisheries and agribusiness ventures," Dar also said.