The glut in the tomato production in the previous years in Nueva Vizcaya made a monicker for former Board Member Wilson Salas of Solano town as ‘Ayuda King’.

He earned this nickname for playing Good Samaritan, picking huge volumes of free tomatoes from the Nueva Vizcaya Agricultural Terminal (NVAT), Inc. in Bambang town and distributes them for free in various barangays and communities in the 15  towns of Nueva Vizcaya.

The overproduction of tomatoes even forced farmers to just drop them on road sides in the province, leaving them huge loses with the high cost of production materials and a shortlist of buyers.

But these  hapless and sad experiences of farmers in Nueva Vizcaya might become a thing in the past with the recent launching of the NVAT Fresh Online that is expected to revolutionalize the agricultural trade with innovative e-commerce platform, thereby transforming the agricultural trade landscape of the NVAT, Inc.

“Through the NVAT Fresh Online platform, our member-farmers and traders will be encouraged to promote, display and sell their products online which will bring savings for them and more income because the practices and interventions  of unscrupulous middlemen are eliminated,” said Gilbert Cumila, NVAT General Manager.

He said a maiden delivery of vegetables and fruits in bulk volumes to an institutional buyer in Metro Manila commenced recently through the NVAT Fresh Online platform, bringing more sales and income for farmers in the province.

Rebekah Eubanks, Deputy Mission Director of the  United States Agency for International Development (USAID)  Philippines, said the NVAT Fresh Online platform is the result of collaborative efforts between the Department of Trade and Industry Region 2 (DTI R2), DTI Nueva Vizcaya and USAID’s  Strengthening Private Enterprises for the Digital Economy (SPEED) project and NVAT, Inc.

The SPEED project is a five-year undertaking to enable small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to participate safely, reliably, and competitively in the country’s emerging e-commerce ecosystem.

She said the digitalization will increase NVAT’s operational efficiency, and subsequently the volume of online transactions.

“In its first year, we project the platform to facilitate 5,000 metric tons in sales, amounting to 3% of NVAT's total volume and generating an estimated P125 million in revenue. By its fifth year, we anticipate sales to rise to approximately 20,000 tons, capturing a 10% market share of NVAT’s sales and achieving P500 million in revenue,” Eubanks said.

Eubanks said the NVAT Fresh Online platform serves as more than a marketplace and it could be a lifeline to many farmers.

“It will enable farmers to circumvent traditional barriers by directly linking them to online buyers, enabling them to command competitive pricing and have a more stable and predictable income,” she said.

The Tripartite Partnership Agreement was signed during the NVAT Fresh Online launching at the Convention Center in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. NVAT was chosen as the pilot area for the project in the country because of its sound management and operations.

USAID also announced  their upcoming project in Nueva Vizcaya through  their Better Access and Connectivity (BEACON) project.

Through the BEACON, NVAT’s member cooperative, St. Joseph Cooperative in the upland Barangay Belance in Dupax del Norte town will host the community internet service network that will benefit over 6,000 farmers.

St. Joseph Cooperative's Board recently approved the initiative, opening a three-month trial of the project in partnership with Kacific Broadband Satellites.

DTI Regional Director Leah Pulido said the online platform, a cloud-based business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce marketplace is set to redefine how farmers, traders, and buyers interact within the agricultural ecosystem.

She said a comprehensive training to NVAT employees will be provided, equipping them with the necessary skills for effective e-commerce operations to further sustain and fully operationalize the NVAT Fresh Online.

“The initial farmers and traders, who will be utilizing NVAT Fresh Online, will receive essential capacity-building and onboarding support. This support will extend beyond the platform's launch as more participants join the platform,” Pulido said.

She said NVAT Fresh Online also seeks to forge partnership and  integration with third-party service providers, including payment gateways and logistics service providers.

Pulido said the DTI Regional Office is continuously linking  NVAT Fresh Online with institutional buyers to draw more product delivery in volumes, leading to increased efficiency, timeliness, and seamlessness of transactions.

She said additional prospective institutional buyers namely Pick.A.Roo, Deliver-E/Insight SCS, REID Foundation, and Plastmann Industrial Corporation along with USAID Mission Team and DA  Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban recently visited various citrus farms in Kasibu town, vegetables and other crop products at the NVAT and met with local farmers/producers.

DTI Assistant Secretary Mary Jean Pacheco also announced that a group of chefs will be visiting farms in Nueva Vizcaya where NVAT’s vegetable and fruit products are produced to know more on how these products are grown in the province.

“With our sustained partnership, we expect an expanded market place for the products of our farmers so that they can be inspired to work in support of our government’s food security program,” Gilbert Cumila, the NVAT general manager said. (OTB/BME/PIA NVizcaya)