NAGA, Zamboanga Sibugay—Agrarian-reform beneficiaries who used to be rubber-plantation workers are now enjoying the fruits of their labor, especially after wiping out their cooperative’s P60-million deficit in 15 years.

Victoria Mindoro, manager of the Tambanan Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Employees Multipurpose Cooperative (Tambemco), said before, a rubber apper earns a basic salary of only P110 a day. 

This is a far cry from what the 298 cooperative members enjoy today.  With a basic salary of P249.50 a day, a rubber tapper earns a premium of P1 for every kilo of latex and scrap they produce, plus benefits.

An employee of Tambemco receives 13th-month pay, a 15 day vacation leave, 15 day sick leave which can be converted into cash, housing allowance of P250 a month and subsidy for electricity consumption of P150 a month.  Not bad for someone who works eight hours a day, plus they get to run the show, being co-owners and members of the cooperative.

Last year Tambemco, which produces rubber latex for various rubber-manufacturing companies based in Mindanao, grossed P69 million, allowing them to post a P16-million net income last year.

Its assets grew from P72 million in 1992 to P87 million as of December 2007, wiping out its over P60-million deficit that was incurred during its first eight years of operations.

Tambemco took over the plantation from Zamboanga Rubber Inc. after the management agreed to place the entire plantation under the voluntary offer-to-sell scheme covering a total of 958 hectares of land planted to rubber trees.

Nothing much was gained from the plantation, according to Mindoro, as the old rubber trees have come to age, when it is no longer productive.

“We had to plant new trees. Our first six years were depressing. We were only earning P110 a day, sometimes less because the production is low,” Mindoro said.

However, in 2004, she said the first batch of rubber trees they planted became productive. 

Currently, Tambemco’s plantation has a production capacity of 5,500 kilos per day for latex and 600 kilos a day of scrap latex.

Tambemco is a shareholder in the Philippine Pioneer Rubber Project Corp. which processes rubber for various latex-producing companies and cooperatives.

Latex is sold from P98 to P103 a kilo, while scrap latex sells at P95 to P98 per kilo.

From 2004, production increased by an average of 10 percent annually. 

Next year, Mindoro said they expect the same average growth, considering that they engaged in the extensive replanting activities on unproductive areas using their own funds. 

According to Mindoro, they plan to fully plant all areas and make them productive in preparation for individual distribution of lands to farmer-beneficiaries.

Mindoro said they are eyeing to put up their own processing plant in the future, in partnership with other agrarian-reform communities in Zamboanga. 

For now, Tambemco is eyeing to modernize its plant and plans to acquire its own laboratory for testing of rubber quality, as they prepare to make a first crack at the world market. 

THE Department of Agriculture (DA), through its attached agency, the National Food Authority (NFA), is encouraging the public to eat brown rice.

INSTEAD of helping returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) establish sari-sari stores, the Philippine government should encourage workers to go into rice production to ease the impact of the impending grain shortage.

HIGH oil prices have forced Filipino rice farmers to contend with soaring fertilizer costs which have gone up by more than half in recent months, an official of the Department of Agriculture (DA) said.

OIL companies increased by another 50 centavos the prices of diesel, gasoline and kerosene, citing as basis the continuous surge of oil prices in the world market.

AFTER a textile firm shuttered its plant in Namibia, retrenched Filipino workers held a strike to oppose the company’s demand which instructed them to leave the South African country without severance pay or shoulder all responsibility for their repatriation.

CEMENT prices will stay the same even during the summer months—seen as the peak of construction activity—and the period when commodity costs traditionally go up.

NAGA, Zamboanga Sibugay—Agrarian-reform beneficiaries who used to be rubber-plantation workers are now enjoying the fruits of their labor, especially after wiping out their cooperative’s P60-million deficit in 15 years.

THE Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) has extended over P125 million in loans to 12,000 households in agrarian-reform communities (ARCs) nationwide through the Agri-Finance Solutions (Agrisol), a program jointly implemented by the bank and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) , with funding support from the World Bank.