“DTI dares Zambo Farmers to improve rubber produce”

ZAMBOANGA City – Dr. SittiAmina Jain, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) regional director, has challenged the farmers in the province of ZamboangaSibugay to produce good quality rubber.Jain made the challenge after it was discovered that some of the farmers in that province mixed chemical to increase the weight of their rubber produce.

Jain disclosed that some farmers use battery solution as coagulant to make the rubber produce heavy because it has strong water retention.However, Jain said the battery solution reduces the value of the rubber since it lessens the Dried Rubber Content (DRC), which is the basis for the calculation of prices.Zamboanga Sibugay Board Member Joel Ebol, who chairs the Committee on Agriculture, echoed the same challenge as he called all farmers to produce quality rubber “ZamboangaSibugay is the number one rubber producing province the country, yet we also produce dirty rubber.I am challenging our farmers to make sure that you produce good quality rubber. Let us cleanse the industry in the province,” Ebol said.Jain disclosed the officials of Yokohama, the only car tire manufacturer in the country, told them that they will not buy rubber from Zamboanga Sibugay because of its poor quality. Jain noted that Yokohama only source out locally about 10-20 percent of the firm’s natural rubber requirement although it is the car tire manufacturer in the country.

“We already talked with Yokohama officials and they told us that they will not buy rubber fromZamboangaSibugay because it is dirty. It pains me because I’m from Region 9. They don’t have problems with rubber from Basilan, nor from other rubber producers in Mindanao. It is only ZamboangaSibugay that is always singled-out,” Jain said.However, all is not lost as Jain bared that Yokohama will be increasing its local sourcing of rubber to 32 percent next year.“Yokohama Philippines will be the biggest tire manufacturer in the world by 2017, even bigger than its mother plant based in Yokohama, Japan. They are planning to increase their local sourcing to 32 percent in 2016 provided that producers improve the quality of their produce”, Jain stressed.

With the ever-growing potential and demand of natural rubber in the world market, Jain said producers should take quality more seriously, thus, DTI will continue embarking on advocacy programs for quality rubber. (PNA)