The National Onion Growers' Cooperative Marketing Association (NOGROCOMA)

NOGROCOMA is a producer cooperative currently owned by about 206 farmer-members (down from a peak of 800). Unlike many commodity cooperatives, NOGROCOMA does not get directly involved in the production of its core crop. It instead purchases onions from member farmers and focuses on marketing them. For every kilo of onions sold to NOGROCOMA, a farmer-member receives an immediate cash “patronage” of 1-2 pesos (US $.02-$.04) over the market price.

The cooperative’s board is elected each year at an annual members’ meeting. Most of the board members are onion farmers, but a few also represent other stakeholder groups. The members come primarily from villages surrounding Bongabon, but over time, the cooperative has attracted farmers from other regions. Anyone in the industry, from farmers to traders, is eligible to join, provided they pay the annual membership fee of PHP 500 (US $10.50), which helps underwrite the cooperative’s services.

What kinds of services? NOGROCOMA uses its collective purchasing power to help members purchase seeds at a reduced price. It provides members with access to microcredit and low-interest loans. It has invested in cold storage facilities in Nueva Ecija, as well as Bulacan, Tarlac, Pangasinan, and Metro Manila (though NOGROCOMA’s Manila facilities were lost to a fire in 2004). The cold storage service is particularly important, since it allows the cooperative to sell at points throughout the year when prices are high.
NOGROCOMA also engages in political advocacy and technological assistance, to improve the livelihoods of small farmers. It has helped develop national grades and standards for onions that have standardized and streamlined the industry. It has taken member-farmers to Taiwan and Japan, major onion exportation competitors of the Philippines, as well as to the United States, to study farming techniques and improve their competitiveness. It has assembled an effective collaborative network of traders, storage operators, and exporters.

To address the environmental challenges from increased production and indiscriminate pesticide use, the cooperative has facilitated over a decade’s worth of technical assistance in integrated pest management (IPM) from USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), local and foreign universities, and a host of international development and agriculture organizations. In 1995, NOGROCOMA initiated contacts with Virginia Technical Institute to use IPM techniques to reduce fertilizer and pesticide use, to cut production costs, and to improve their competitive advantage.

NOGROCOMA also works to spread IPM techniques to non-members. Over the past decade, the cooperative has worked alongside the Foundation for Resource Linkage and Development (FRLD), a USAID initiative, to organize an agricultural and food production trade show called “Agrilink.” This annual gathering allows NOGROCOMA members to share IPM successes and learn what has worked well for others.

Though NOGROCOMA was originally founded to protect the domestic market, competitive pressures have moved it into exporting and now importing. To support these evolutions, NOGROCOMA has prioritized several strategies. It is providing special rewards to its members who achieve the best productivity increases at the lowest price. Over the next decade, it hopes to quadruple members’ output per hectare. It will encourage wider adoption of organic growing and IPM techniques. It will invest in members’ irrigation infrastructure. It is exploring new, specialty markets for export (the Japanese, for example, are especially interested in larger onions). And it is investigating the opening of a cooperative store for farmers that would sell all kinds of production inputs, diesel fuel, irrigation pumps, and small tractors.

While NOGROCOMA has raised much of its capital through member dues and retained earnings, it has also scored several significant grants. In 2001 the Philippines’ Department of Agriculture gave a grant of PHP 8 million (US $170,000) to NOGROCOMA to underwrite technical assistance for branding and marketing, to incorporate new onion production technologies in member farms, and to construct a nursery. The latter will allow members to substitute local seedlings for their current dependence on high-cost seeds from the United States.

One important feature of NOGROCOMA’s work is the participation of women such as Dulce Gozon. While onion farming is still dominated by men, Dulce says that “women are better at handling the product with TLC, good at selling, and are better marketers than men.” Dulce—herself a powerful agricultural leader—actively encourages women’s participation in farming and cooperative management, and promotes women’s development through her advocacy. For over two decades, she has been a member of Soroptimist, an NGO that works to improve the lives of women and girls in communities throughout the world.