Marketing of Pina fiber in Balete, Aklan

Abstract

This study describes and analyses the different marketing channels, functions, costs, margins, and the different problems encountered by both producers of pina and middlemen of pina fiber in Balete, Aklan. Of the four barangay sampled, primary data were obtained from ten (10) producers who were asked about their recent halved, and 34 middlemen were consequently interviewed based on their last week’s operations. Results of the study show that out of the 40.200 pina leaves harvested by producers, scrapers absorbed the bulk or 69.71 %(24,900), while the legist fraction of .99% was token by producer-scrapers-trader. Highest prices paid for pina leaves at P0.35 was accorded by producer-scrapper-knotter while scraper-knotter offered the least price at P.25. Despite of the five marketing activities performed, and corresponding costs on marketing Investments, producers still incurred positive financial net farm price of P.217. By marketing functions, seven types of middlemen were observed, namely: scrapers, producer-scrapers, scraper-knotters, producer-scraper-knotter, knotters, producer-scraper-trader, and traders—who essentially perform an overlap of functions. Though all types of middlemen incurred positive gross margin, not everyone experienced positive not margins and net returns. With the bulk of transactions disposed by traders (1,668.125 leaves) and producer-scraper trader (2,000 leaves), these two types of middlemen received positive financial net margins and returns. Of the different marketing problems cited, majority the majority of producers and middlemen were unanimous in pointing at low price of the product as their biggest constraint Other than the need to increase the price, organizing a cooperative and support from the local government, this study suggests, that due to foe duplication of function among types of middlemen, specialization on a particular function (e.g, scraper or knotter— alone) is a must in order to curb the circuitous and dragging flow of the product and lessen costs on labor.