Scenario of the Cordillera highland vegetable industry

AGGIE UPDATE

By J. Dayao

The mountain ranges of Cordillera are home to high yielding semi-temperate or highland vegetables.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, Cordillera Administrative Region remains the country’s biggest producer of highland vegetables that supplies 70-80% of the local market requirements.

Benguet, Mountain Province and Ifugao are the lead producers of majority of the highland vegetables being supplied in the National Capital Region and in other regions of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Benguet alone contributes 82% of the total volume.

The highland vegetable industry covers the food supply chain and involves the livelihood of individuals that are directly or indirectly in the agriculture sector.

  About 2/3 of the population living in Cordillera are dependent on the vegetable industry for their livelihood, from production, transport, postharvest, processing and marketing.

These include family entrepreneurs, laborers, haulers, disposers, traders, drivers, processors and retailers to the rippled jobs such as employment for manufacture, fabrication and marketing of various kinds of farm equipments, tools and other machineries as well as the processing and marketing of the different kinds of farm inputs.

The highland vegetable industry is facing problems.

There had been a wide priced gap from the so-called farm-gate to retail price.

While many consumers complain of high retail price, farmers  complain against of low buying price.

On the production side, farmers complain about the high cost of production inputs. Aside from the inadequacy or absence of capital is   temperature, irrigation and calamities which contribute to delay of planting and harvesting.

DA-CAR executive director Lorenzo M. Caranguian said with the given advantage of climate in Cordillera, it is a must to enhance highland vegetable industry because it is where Cordillera is known and enjoys a competitive edge over the other regions.

He said Cordillera cannot compete with other crops, thus concentrating with highland vegetables is encouraged.

In the SWOT analysis conducted by the Department of Agriculture-High Value Crops Development Program (DA-HVCDP), identified strengths in the local vegetable industry were regional collaboration, existence of farmers’ organizations, year-round production, sizeable land for vegetable production, manpower resources and proven farm technology. In Benguet, more than 150,000 are highland vegetable farmers.

Weaknesses are financial problems and inadequate market information system.

On the other hand, threats are huge effect of climate change which causes unbalanced supply of vegetables, land conversion from agricultural to industrial, mono-croppingand shifting of plantation crops , smuggling and political or traditional system.

The ASEAN Free Trade Agreement or the World Trade Organization is also seen as a formidable threat.

Even with these, the increasing demand of vegetables at local or international levels, available transport networks, prioritization of the production of vegetables, demand of organic and GAP vegetables are seen as opportunities.

Indeed, Cordillera is blessed with agricultural resources that are needed to be developed.