A farm tourism destination in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan is organizing a “run for a cause” to help farmers suffering over plummeting palay prices, with proceeds to be used for buying palay above farmgate prices and giving the rice back to them.
The sorry state of rice farmers in the Philippines brought about by plummeting farmgate prices of palay is the centerpiece of a 5-km run organized by Yamang Bukid Farm-Palawan on Sept. 28. Proceeds of the event will be used to buy palay from farmers in Narra town, Palawan well above the prevailing prices and redistribute the milled rice back to them.
Dubbed “Takbo para sa mga Magsasaka (Run for the Farmers)”, the five-kilometer run also aims to raise funds to help a non-government organization and a farmer’s group in Palawan, said Hope Alas, tourism officer of Yamang Bukid Farm.
“This is for the farmers all over the Philippines. We have been running for other causes but we haven’t had one for our farmers who have toiled so much so we can put food on our tables,” Alas said.
The event coincides with Yamang Bukid Farm’s 5th Agros Farmers’ Festival which will be held in Barangay Bacungan on Sept. 28. Proceeds of the run will go to the Palawan Center for Appropriate Rural Technology and a farmers’ association in the southern town of Narra, Palawan’s rice granary where palay farm gate prices plunged to as low as P7/kilo, Alas said.
Alas said the farm destination, which has been supportive of advocacies for sustainable agriculture, will make the fun run an annual event.
The 42-hectare tourism destination in Barangay Bacungan has been known for employing former illegal loggers as farmworkers, teaching them sustainable agriculture and environmental protection and conservation. The run will start from Bacungan proper, traversing an uphill paved road that ends at the Yamang Bukid Farm welcome marker in Purok (Community) Candes III. Each ticket costs P350, inclusive of singlet and race bib.