All Those Mangoes Should Have Been Sold Before They Were Even Produced!

There is a glut, surfeit, superabundance, overstock, over-supply. "Sweet, velvety, soft and scandalously succulent – we have the best mangoes in the world!" Chef & Filipino food advocate Jam Melchor, is trying to help stem the flood of the world's best by putting out a call on Facebook, tagging chefs, restaurateurs and food advocates. 

That is a report by Yvette Tan published in an online magazine, "Help Luzon Mango Farmers By Buying This Season's Bumper Crop" (03? June 2019 Agriculture Monthly, agriculture.com.ph).

Too many market stalls displaying too many mangoes to love (see image above again), too few mango buyers out of love. Miss Yvette writes:

Reports of tons of produce dumped by the side of the road by frustrated farmers who've grown too much but have no access to buyers have been a depressing occurrence in social media.

I guess too many mango growers wanted to make a killing – all at the same time!

So, Miss Yvette writers, chef and Filipino food advocate Jam Melchor, founder of the Philippine Culinary Heritage Movement, put out a distress call on Facebook, urging food industry friends to help our mango farmers by buying, to call the DA main office at (02)925-3795 so they can be linked directly to those mango producers.

Mr Melchor's post also read:

Remember that picture of tons and tons of locally grown tomatoes dumped by farmers in Laguna in a waste dumpsite last year was very troubling. For one, the farmers toiled to grow those tomatoes and now they got nothing for their effort.

His last plea was this:

Let us not wait for the time when our farmers will give up on us. It is time to rethink how each of us can help them, even in small ways.

Buying all those mangoes will help the mango growers sell, but selling is not the problem – managing the production of those mangoes is the problem!

The problem is not the Department of Agriculture, DA, either. The DA already has enough problems with rice to bother with mangoes!

I mean, technically speaking, it's the whole system of postharvest handling up to the marketing of those fruits that needs to be improved.

As a long-time (board) member of the Nagkaisa Multi-Purpose Cooperative in my hometown of Asingan, Pangasinan, I know that a cooperative would be a great help in systematizing the production as well as the marketing of mangoes when in season. The mango growers can agree to allow the coop to market their produce, even before the first flower-inducing spraying is done, via signed contracts with institutional buyers such as supermarkets, hotels & restaurants all over the town and the next ones. The link to the market should be before production, not after – or the traders will take advantage of you!

I blame all of us for this mango tragedy. We have not been teaching our farmers how to cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit so they will grow and go after not the highest income but higher & sustainable incomes. Making a killing can kill anyone.517