A Blessed Holy Week for Farmers

It’s just the start of the year yet farmers from the northern part of the Philippines are already claiming that they will be “blessed’ during the Holy Week.

The National Federation of Tobacco Growers and Cooperatives (NFTGC) welcomes with arms wide open the assurance of Mighty Corporation, the Bulacan-based cigarette manufacturer, that they will buy at least 10 million kilograms of tobacco leaves at an average price of P70 per kilo from farmers in Pangasinan and Ilocos provinces. The company will also buy all the excess leaves that farmers could not sell to other buyers.

NFTGC President Mario Cabasal said, “Now that we are assured of an alternative market, besides other tob@cco companies, our members will again be inspired to devote larger areas to the cultivation of Ilocandia’s most important cash crop.”

The planting of the golden leaf was started last December and selling of the dry leaf often happens just before the nation commemorates the Holy Week.

Cabasal also explained that because of the assurance of Mighty Corporation, a company owned by the Wongchuking family, prices of their products will stay high even after the holiday season unlike in the past when prices were cut down on harvests after the Holy Week which was an old practice of middlemen from the region.

This year, the catholic celebration will be observed from April 14 to 20.

NFGTC pointed out that the good news from Mighty Corporation will provide an opportunity to the farmers to earn more during this season since the only other crop that they plant is corn which actually gives them lower profit than tob@acco.

“Now that we are assured of an alternative market, besides other tobacco companies, our members will again be inspired to devote larger areas to the cultivation of Ilocandia’s most important cash crop,” Cabasal said.