Solon wants probe on syndicate preying on rubber tree farmers

The House Committees on Agriculture and Small Business and Entrepreneurship Development has been asked to look into the reported underpricing of rubber tree extracts in Mindanao.

Anakpawis partylist Rep. Fernando Hicap sought a congressional probe on the existence of a “very influential” trade cartel in the region that has been affecting the livelihood of farmers, tappers and agricultural workers in different rubber plantations in the province of Cotabato and other parts of Mindanao.

“According to complaints received from the Free Tappers Federation (FTF)-North Cotabato , there is a pervading practice of underpricing of rubber tree extract products that are directly purchased by traders from farmers and tappers. Farmers and tappers sell wet kaplam at extremely low prevailing prices ranging from P18 to P20 per kilo,” he said in filing House Resolution 2060.

He said traders sell the same product to millers at P65 per kilo. Meanwhile, the millers export kaplam at $1.94 dollars or around P90 per kilo.

“The wide gap between from gate price and export market price of kaplam unfairly affects the livelihood of farmers who directly toil in the production of rubber tree extract and who are likewise burdened by existing 70-30 sharecropping scheme with plantation owners,” he said.

“The organized tappers in the province of Cotabato firmly believe that there has long been in existence a very influential trade cartel that dictates the price of Kaplan,” he lamented.

He noted that in a dialogue with farmers belonging to the FTF, Cotabato provincial board member Loreto Cabaya Jr, who is the chairperson of the committee on agriculture of the Cotabato provincial government disclosed that based on the existing market value of raw rubber tree extract, its farm gate price can possibly be adjusted and raised to R65 per kilo to the advantage of local tappers and agricultural workers.