Nagkaisa Connect. On Coops, Scarcity & Pinakbet

MANILA: Today, I do not bring you to the factory: The factory comes to you! And this is a new story of the famous Ilocano Pinakbet, which surprisingly many people don’t know how to cook, including restaurants you know. And, if you think you know how the factory works, and you know how to cook Pinakbet, this may double-surprise you.

Behind a pickup, this cow-pulled travelling store of woven baskets, probably from Mangaldan, Pangasinan, stopping to rest in my hometown of Asingan in the same province, is an excellent metaphor to show what a Coop can do for the people, especially the poor near or far. A travelling store of baskets like this eliminates the middleman; you are buying at factory price. All coops must eliminate the middleman to bring down prices of goods and services to the level of the poor: affordable.

We have just established Nagkaisa, a multipurpose cooperative in my hometown (see also my "A Coop Is Born. Will Nagkaisa wake Asingan up?" 23 October 2012, Nagkaisa, blogspot.com). I don't want to remain a member of a traditional cooperative; I want to be innovative and go beyond the low-prices-dividends-loans-and-patronage-refund approach to the point where the Coop becomes the middleman all over the villages that it serves. The middleman who cares.

I want to revolutionize the concept of the cooperative. So I've been thinking of scarcity amidst plenty, what coops can do, learning from the clue words Dawat, Gawat and Gaw-at, which are as Ilocano as I am.
Dawat means beg or ask (verb), gift or something begged for (noun). "Dumawatak man ti papayayo?" (May I have some of your papaya?") In the villages, you don't have to be poor to make dawat and be given what you ask. That applies to a few things; sometimes you give against your wish when the begging is insistent. What are neighbors for?

Gawat means times of scarcity, lean times. "Gawat manen, utang manen." (Lack again, loan again.) This usually happens to poor farmers waiting to harvest their crops. For lack of savings, these are the times when they turn to usurers to borrow 5/6, or 20% interest short time - you borrow PhP 5000 and you pay PhP 6000. And yet, why do the poor continue to borrow under terms of usury, I don't know. Usury loves company? (See also my "Asingan Milk Festival. 'Dapat, Awan Ti Gawat!' - Nestor Salvador," 12 April 2011, The Creattitudes Encyclopedia, blogspot.com.) Actually, the better-off don't give the poor a better choice.

Gaw-at means reach or access (verb & noun). "No magaw-atmo, kukuam." ("If you can reach it, it's yours.") To get rid not so much the Dawat but the Gawat in the village, the Coop like Nagkaisa must encourage Gaw-at and support small businesses among the poor. That's giving the poor a better choice. The Coop must provide the poor farmers and other small producers access to credit at all times of need, from cultivating the soil to selling the produce.

Beyond ordinary loans, what I'm thinking of is similar to what is called warrantage or inventory credit system practiced in Africa, a lesson from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (see my "Peanuts for your thoughts. Out of Africa, where the women beat the men," 03 November 2012, iCRiSAT Watch, blogspot.com), but one I'd like to call here Nagkaisa Connect. I want the Coop to connect the farmers every step of the way, from cultivation to marketing, from seeds to processed products, from the farm gate to the consumer table; I want the Coop to enjoy the values added along the value chain and, since the farmers are members of the Coop, they will benefit at all points where and whenever the Coop benefits.

More specifically, this is how Nagkaisa Connect can help farmers with any crop or livestock:
(1) Loans for production. The loans will cover any or all of these: seeds, fertilizers, pesticides. Note that fertilizers are the most expensive items in farming, as each bag cost about PhP 1,000 and farmers apply 10 bags to a hectare. Pesticides are no less expensive. For livestock, loans will cover acquisition of animals, housing and feeds as may be necessary.

(2) Arrangements. These include cultivating, harvesting, fertilizing, spraying, harvesting, drying, milling, storage, marketing. Like, the Coop can train and hire out a team of efficient harvesters depending on the crop. During harvest and postharvest, it is important that the produce be handled carefully to avoid waste, unnecessary injury and spoilage. Drying arrangements are especially necessary for rice. Like, the Coop should be able to negotiate for grain dryers for the continuous drying of farm produce for the many small farmers. Likewise for milling, storage and marketing.
That is all theoretical. Let me give you a less-theoretical case: I'm interested and I think it's only proper that we revive Asingan as the Pinakbet Capital of Pangasinan, of Luzon, even of the Philippines. Now then, for the Nagkaisa Pinakbet Special, we will require a continuous, year-round supply of high-quality

(1) ampalaya (bitter gourd)
(2) buggoong (fish paste)
(3) beans
(4) eggplant
(5) garlic
(6) ginger
(7) okra
(8) onion
(9) patani (Lima beans)
(10) pork
(11) squash
(12) tomato.

It's not practical to get your supplies of all those ingredients from only 1 or 2 sources; to spread the benefits, you would buy from at least 12 different sources with firm contracts for at least 1 year in advance.

So you have an ongoing contract each with the grower of the beans, eggplant, garlic, ginger, okra, onion, patani, squash, and tomato. You also have an ongoing contract with the supplier of the pork and another of the buggoong. (In case some suppliers fail, you have Plan B.) You want quality; you insist on quality. You agree beforehand on the list of criteria with which to declare a supply item as of high quality or not. You always check what you accept; you don't accept below-quality produce even it sells lower if it is meant to go into the Nagkaisa Pinakbet package, which must remain tops in quality.

And you know what? I surfed the Web and found that no one knows how to cook a proper Pinakbet! All those recipe websites out there in the Internet, they all have the ampalaya and eggplant sliced, diced, halved or quartered - all wrong. How then can they cook those two items so that they come out shriveled or shrunk, which is the literal meaning of pinakbet or pakbet (short for pinakebbet)? One of the websites even has the nerve to call its recipe "Pinakbet Ilocano Style" - and of course, s/he doesn't know how to cook it right. If it's honest-to-goodness pakbet, it's Ilocano style; if it's not shrunk, it's not Pinakbet and it's not Ilocano, okay?

Here are some of those websites in case you were interested to check them out for the wrong Pinakbet:

All Favorite Recipe (allfavoriterecipe.com)
All Recipes (allrecipes.com)
Cook Advice (cookadvice.com)