Directory of local farmers and produce buyers in the works

Acting Agriculture director Manny Pangelinan is urging all farmers and local produce buyers to get listed in the 2011 CNMI Crop Producer and Buyer Directory.

The 2011 CNMI Crop Producer and Buyer Directory will provide information on local farmers and their contact information, farm plot physical location, producer status (whether a commercial or a subsistence farmer), the type of agricultural products grown and its availability.

The directory will also include other information such as location of farmers’ markets, operation hours, if they accept food assistance programs, and the various local vendors that distribute fresh local produce, specialty crops, and other agricultural products.

Pangelinan said in an interview that updating the directory is among the projects included in the $120,000 grant they received from the Agricultural Marketing Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Other projects that are part of the grant are mainly “marketing and promotional materials” which include the “Buy Fresh, Buy Local” signage on Saipan, Tinian and Rota; posters to be conspicuously placed in government and private buildings; and bumper stickers that would promote agricultural production in the CNMI.

This particular project, Pangelinan said, is “to create a crop directory that would provide information and resources to both the buyers, the sellers, and the general public consumer.”

According to Pangelinan, many people do not know who the farmers and local produce buyers are on island.

Pangelinan said the crop directory is one form of networking among farmers and buyers that will help promote local products and increase agricultural production.

“If we don’t start enhancing the productivity of our local produce, eventually we are not helping ourselves in food security. What happens if there is a catastrophe somewhere else that the ship cannot come here? We’re so dependent on import,” he told Saipan Tribune.

Pangelinan noted, however, that they do not aim to take over the import of all products “but to substitute some of the importation with those we can grow here locally.”

He also noted that many of today’s youth do not know about farming and do not see it as a potential career.

“If we at least continue to promote and market [farming], they can see that this can be at least a lucrative business,” he said.

Pangelinan disclosed that the CNMI is also a recipient of a $160,000 grant which he said will be used for multimedia marketing of the local agricultural industry.

“When we’re finished with this directory, we’ll be doing talk shows, interviews with people, we’ll be doing maybe cooking show using local produce, we’ll be doing a website,” he said.

Deadline for submission of updated information as well as new entries to the 2011 CNMI Crop Producer and Buyer Directory is on July 28 at 12nn.

Pangelinan encouraged all farmers, local retail and wholesale market consumers to be listed in the directory since it is free of charge.

“The best that will come out of it is that their name is there and people can call them,” he added.

For more information, contact Pangelinan at 322-9830 or email mmpangelinan@gmail.com, attention 2011 CNMI Farmers Directory; Saipan Municipal Council at 664-2700 or email spnmunco@yahoo.com; Saipan Sabalu Farmers Market Association; or NMC CREES director Ross Manglona at rossm@nmcnet.edu.