San Jose City – Kalasag As Shield Against Fungi, Shield Against Poverty

Noel Ocampo Reyes shares on Facebook that a “Co-op Grows 800 Tons Onion For Food Chain, Makes Own Fungicide[1]!” Excited, yes. That’s Zac Sarian enthusiastically writing (29 June 2020, zacsarian.com) about members of the Kalasag Farmers Producers Cooperative preparing their own fungicide that they call Trichoderma – actually the name of the fungus – that they spray against all kinds of fungal enemies of hectares upon hectares of onion in San Jose City in Nueva Ecija. Zac tells us the Trichoderma initially used came from PhilRice in Nueva Ecija, free for the asking.

Before I forget. Zac mentions that Kalasag is growing onion “for a big fastfood company” – in 2012, already I knew that to be the Jollibee chain of companies. That’s one of the secrets of a good coop: Get a marketing contract with an institutional consumer and you are good for life!

Been there, done that 8 years ago. I visited that place early 2012 to interview and photograph the Kalasag members for the book I was producing – writing, photographing, desktop publishing – to help celebrate the Silver Anniversary of the Agricultural Credit & Policy Council, ACPC (which is under the Department of Agriculture), when Jovita Corpuz  was Executive Director – the book cover I designed you can see inset above, with Kalasag farmers on their fields harvesting. Note that Frank H is showing white onions while Zac Sarian is showing red onions. Both Ilocanos, we have quite different “noses for news” – Frank goes for the producers while Zac goes for the product.

The ACPC book I produced in 2012 titled The Filipino Farmer Is Bankable and subtitled Celebrating 25 Years Of The ACPC, mainly featured the operations of successful coops. 8 years later, here I am proselytizing for more multipurpose coops that are more business-like and which I refer to as Super Coops.

Yes, I am emphasizing more producers rather than products. I am a board member of the Nagkaisa Multi-Purpose Cooperative in my hometown Asingan in Pangasinan, and I know that such types of coop hold much promise as farmers’ friends in terms of helping them rise from poverty and staying up there! Nagkaisa is not yet my ideal Super Coop – while Kalasag of San Jose City by all means already is a Super Coop, able and equipped to grow, process, store, transport and market the onions for members. (There are 45 members, according to NRT 2011[2].)  In 2012, I learned each Kalasag farmer earned at least P1 million/ha!

That’s what a Super Coop is for: Helping members cultivate business-mindedness so that they can rise from their poor stations in life to one of prosperity – whether they go for white or red onion, whether they use a natural product as fungicide or not. It’s the cooperative working as one force for all members, not just for a few investors.

We must grow tons & tons of produce – simultaneously, we must cultivate a million farmers via Super Coops like Kalasag who will help them escape from poverty, improve their lives, and sustain themselves!@517

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[1]https://zacsarian.com/co-op-grows-800-tons-onion-for-food-chain-makes-own-fungicide/?fbclid=IwAR1cPMwFlrAj-
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[2]https://www.slideshare.net/MABSIV/bridging-farmers-to-the-jollibee-value-chain-program