Cagayan de Oro Business Promotion Center (OroBPC)

Normin veggies breaks through Mindanao, Visayas markets

Vegetable producers in Northern Mindanao are finding it rewarding to focus marketing their semi-temperate crops on institutional buyers in the Visayas and Mindanao markets. The whole chain of vegetable production, shipping and distribution can become expensive when a producer does this alone. However, seeing the advantages that concerted efforts bring about, local producers organized themselves into a marketing cluster that has benefited the region’s vegetable industry.

The Northern Mindanao Vegetable Producers’ Association, Inc. or NorminVeggies, has transformed into a market-focused and highly competitive industry cluster. Its efforts to improve technologies have led to higher productivity and reduction in spoilage and deterioration. These gains were achieved by adopting the marketing cluster strategy of collaborating for marketing competitiveness.

Fiber group promotes use of raw materials

Go green. This is the byword used to encourage people to support the environment. Practically everyone in the globe knows its value. Go local. This should be another byword that we Filipinos ought to live by as well to support our local economy and keep its wheels turning.

Combining going green and going local could have favorable results especially to the MisamisOriental Multi-Fiber Cluster, Inc. (MOMCI), the association of handicraft producers. Using indigenous materials such as abaca fiber, cogon grass, flowers, and leaves, members of MOMCI are able to creatively design and manufacture novelty items such as bags, cards, writing materials, and other similar items. These are sold locally and exported to clients abroad, particularly in the US and in Europe. But these quality crafted items and accessories that boast of Filipino ingenuity, have yet to be appreciated by most Filipinos.