My name is Ferdinand Govica, 43 years old, married, and was blessed with 5 children. My oldest son Mark is 17years old taking up an IT (computer) course in college, Cherry, my second child, is 1st grade of national high school who is very good at schooling, especially in Mathematics and she won 1st place in Mathematics Competition. My third child is Johnmark, 12 years old, 2nd year high school, the fourth child is Qizilyn, 9 years old, Grade 2 and the youngest is Mark, a cute kindergarten.
My parents were poor farmers. I was not able to finish my college education due to the lack of money to support my education. In 1989, I started earning Php 60.00 per day (US $1.50) as a farm worker. I can¹t afford to buy arable land that’s why I became a permanent tenant of a farm of a rich owner who takes 30% commission in every harvest. Since 2000, I¹ve been planting 51 Carabao mango trees. Before contacting with PREDA in 2007, I also was a part-time tricycle driver earning 250-400 pesos but paying rental 150 pesos per day to the owner .
At that time, my family was living as squatter in a 10 x 10 meter area. I was suffering from very serious financial difficulties then. However, when I qualified with the standards of Profairtrade , (Preda fair trade) for small farmers, my situation has been changing positively,with the good price paid by Preda fair trade with a bonus. With the extra money I could get a better house. In 2009 my family moved in our existing house which we are very much satisfied with and in the next year 2010, I bought a second-hand tricycle from the Preda fair trade premium(Bonus) I received from Profairtrade, (Preda fair trade) so that I could be working as a tricycle driver without paying any rental fee. Furthermore, I arranged very small retail shop adjacent to our home so that my wife could still look after our family while earning at the same time. The Benefits from Preda Fairtrade made me dream about the next step in improving my family¹s life little by little.
The biggest difference between selling mangos to commercial market middlemen and Preda fair trade is its price. When I earn 16 pesos per kg in commercial market, Profairtrade (Preda fair trade) gives me 20pesos a Kilo plus extra 2 pesos as additional premium per kg. To do so, I¹m trying to put more efforts into harvesting worthy quality mangos. For instance, ³mango management and fertilizer application (organic way)² seminar was the most helpful seminar by Profairtrade (Preda fair trade) in 2008 for me.
Since I took this seminar, I have been replacing chemical pesticide and now do bagging fruit instead of inducing chemical spray for several times. (Bagging is to place a paper bag around each small mango fruit on the tree so it grows in the bag free from the attack of insects)Ed.
I think fair-trading products guaranteed by reliable producers like me are good for consumers as well as producers. Only what I expect to Profairtrade (Preda fair trade) is maintaining a partnership with poor farmers like me consistently. If I earned huge money as enough as not need to work anymore, I would keep farming mangos and hire other poor farmers. Thanks to Profairtrade, (Preda fair trade) I was rewarded with 30,720 pesos as Fair-trade premium this year after trading 15,360 Kls mangos with Profairtrade (Preda fair trade). I hope to extend items in my retail shop and reinforce bamboo weaved walls with concrete in my house with this fair trade premium.
Thank you!
Ferdinand Govica
