In the attempt to stabilize the prices of basic food items in the market, agriculture secretary Manny Piñol opens another series of TienDA Malasakit stores at the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) in Malate, Manila on September 21, 2018.

“The problem is not our supply but the position of our food production areas and logistics,” Piñol said during the event.

According to the agri chief, this event attempts to link farmers directly to the market and make their produce affordable to the consumers and eliminates the role of the middlemen.

A business matching event was also arranged to link vegetable seed producers, farmer leaders, local government units, supermarket procurement officers, and other industry buyers in order to create a direct link between one another. “This is one of our measures to curb and eventually eliminate middlemen that manipulate our market prices of food items,” Piñol added. (Written by Carlos Baldosa and Photo by Alan Jay Jacalan, DA-AFID)