Benguet veggie farmers facing stiff competition

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet  — Benguet farmers who now produce a daily average of more than 2,000 tons of temperate vegetables have until 2016 to widen their market outlets to withstand competition from their counterparts in Asia and other parts of the world.

Benguet Gov. Nestor Fongwan said the responsibility will be undertaken by the Benguet Farmers Cooperative which, through government infrastructures and assistance, made vegetable production in the area a multimillion-peso industry.

“The free trade agreement which will take effect in 2016, the Philippines being a signatory with other nations in the world, will subject our farmers to a stiff competition with their counterparts especially with countries like China which have high standards of farming technology,” he said.

He said one way of bolstering the local farmers’ competitiveness would be to widen their market opportunities.

To date, a large bulk of the temperate vegetables produced along the 100-kilometer stretch of Halsema Highway is transported to Metro Manila. A certain volume is exported to Japan, and the rest is sold in local markets especially along the coastal areas of northwestern Luzon.

“Our prospective additional buyers are the international food chains that produce daily French fries for their customers. We were informed that up to now, these food chains import their potatoes from other countries which have the so-called processing type of potatoes,” he said.

“We can also produce the same kind of potatoes if given the particular variety as well as the technology of how to produce the same in commercial scale,” he assured.

In the past, through both the local government of Benguet and the Benguet State University (BSU), many local farmers were taught of the new farming technologies from Japan and those practiced in the University of the Philippines Los Baños.

Their training was mostly manifested in the improved qualities in the produced strawberries, vegetables and other cash crops through the use of open terraces during summer and greenhouses during rainy season.

It was also in that period when Fongwan led the better packaging of products here which saw the improved marketing status of agricultural products here, including those of the relatively new cutflower industry.

Fongwan said the farmers are optimistic that just as how the government effectively stopped vegetable smuggling in the country, “the government can also help them become globally competitive.” -- PNA