Guimaras sells mangoes online to skirt COVID-19 crunch

By Emme Rose Santiagudo

Despite the abundant supply of the world famous Guimaras mangoes, farmers are finding it hard to market their produce due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis.

The Guimaras Mango Growers Cooperative composed of 150 mango growers sought the help of the provincial government in marketing the mangoes, according to Lenny S. Gonzaga of the Provincial Economic Development Office.

“They asked our help because they have rich supply of mangoes but they find it difficult to sell due to the community quarantine imposed in other provinces,” Gonzaga said Thursday.

The province of Guimaras has banned the entry of tourists and non-essential persons following the COVID-19 outbreak.

Iloilo City, the main gateway to the island province, is also under enhanced community quarantine to limit the movement of people.

The protocols make it difficult for mango growers to transport their products and find buyers, according to Gonzaga.

“It really has a huge impact to our farmers. Before the crisis, Guimaras mangoes were easy to sell and farmers have sure buyers. Now, many of their transactions were cancelled due to the travel restrictions,” she said.

The cancellation of the Manggahan Festival in Guimaras also affected the farmers, Gonzaga added.

“During these times, there were supposedly scheduled promotional activities to market the mangoes for the festival. There were also no tourists entering the province and so there is really a surplus of Guimaras mangoes,” she said.

To ease the burden of the farmers, the provincial government of Guimaras is helping them market their mangoes online.

Using the Facebook page Choose Guimaras Philippines, Gonzaga said they initiated the online selling of Guimaras mangoes.

Buyers can message the page for their orders which will be shipped to Iloilo City on a scheduled delivery basis.

“They can message us directly. Usually, we deliver every two days or depending on the order,” Gonzaga said.

From the usual P200 per kilograms, the price also dropped to P130 per kilo.

On Thursday alone, Gonzaga said they were able to sell 852 kilograms of Guimaras mangoes.

Gonzaga said they came up with the idea after their online selling of Guimaras mangoes became an instant hit in Manila recently.

Around 1.6 tons of mangoes intended for the National Food Fair organized by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Bureau of Domestic Trade and Promotion set on March 12-15 but was cancelled due to Covid-19 were sold online.

Additional 1.5 tons of mangoes were also sent to Manila two days after.

“After that success of online marketing in Manila, we thought of incorporating it here. It’s the least that we can do to help our mango growers earn income,” Gonzaga said.