With issues lingering between the Farmer\u2019s Cooperative and the Sabalu Farmers Market, Association of Northern Mariana Island\u2019s Mayors, Vice Mayors, and Elected Municipal Council Members president Melissa B. Savares has this one piece of advise for them: Settle your differences and work together.<\/p>\n
The conflict between farmers from the Farmers Cooperative and Sabalu Market has been brewing for quite awhile. Yet without the cooperation of farmers on Saipan, nothing can be resolved and providing necessary products through competition could engender deeper conflicts for the farmers.<\/p>\n
Savares said the same thing also happens in Guam. She said Guam farmers recently took each other to court because they have two separate groups: the Farmers Co-op and the Chamorro Village farmers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey weren\u2019t seeing eye to eye, so they had two presidents where they had two elections at the same day. Because we\u2019re in the process of building a facility, I didn\u2019t want to get involved with their squabble,\u201d Savares said.<\/p>\n
She said they had Guam\u2019s Department of Agriculture work it out with the farmers.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoA and the leadership should work with the two leaderships of the farmers here on Saipan because they all have the same goal and that is to produce crops so our people can eat healthier and have local produce,\u201d Savares said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo put your differences aside and look at what your goals are and don\u2019t compete against each other because competing against each other is what any business would do, but you have to look at what are the needs of the people, what are the needs to eat healthier, so they can be healthier.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of now, the Sabalu Market and Farmers Co-op are in negotiations to restore the Tuesday Market at the Garapan Fishing Base. However, that would eventually defeat the purpose of the Garapan Public Market.<\/p>\n
Savares said that having the Farmers Co-op would allow farmers to supply their produce in just one place instead of going out and doing the selling themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cFarmers can go to the market and place their produce and then go back and maintain their farm, not needing to go out there and selling it on the streets. That way they will have more produce available. So collaborative efforts need to be addressed between farmers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Savares said Saipan farmers should \u201cwork together to benefit the community and build a healthier community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With issues lingering between the Farmer\u2019s Cooperative and the Sabalu Farmers Market, Association of Northern…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2393,51,67,1706],"class_list":["post-192625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-farmers-co-op","tag-guam","tag-people","tag-sabalu-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}