Farmers hit veggie smuggling as prices drastically go down

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet — Farmers in this province are complaining. The prevailing high prices of locally produced vegetables in the province the past months suddenly dropped during the previous days after a huge volume of imported agricultural crops from various countries were smuggled into the country through various ports in Visayas and Mindanao.

This was bared by concerned truckers and traders here as they condemned the national government’s anti-smuggling task force and the Bureau of Customs for their failure to perform their assigned duties and responsibilities in preventing the entry of smuggled crops that affect the lucrative local agriculture industry.

Based on reports reaching the provincial government here, huge volume of potatoes, carrots, broccoli, onions and celery from China, Taiwan, Australia and the United States have been allowed entry into the Davao, Cagayan and Cebu ports over the past several days which resulted into a sudden drop of the wholesale buying prices of locally produced vegetables that are being purchased by Manila traders who visit the vegetable trading post daily.

Regular disposers and middlemen from the trading post admitted that their buyers from various parts of Metro Manila, Central Luzon and the lowlands have stopped purchasing potatoes, carrots, celery, broccoli and onions over the past several days because of the availability of cheap and much bigger products from China, Taiwan, Australia and the United States.

From its previous P42 to P47 per kilo, the prices of potatoes dropped to only P20 to P25 per kilo with no more large volume orders being placed over the past several days, which led to the losses of farmers in the various vegetable-producing towns in the province.

Provincial officials and agricultural stakeholders strongly appealed to the Office of the President to adopt the appropriate measures to put a stop on the unscrupulous importers who allow the use of their companies to sneak in the multi-million-peso worth of vegetables which result to the huge losses incurred by farmers since their crops are no longer bought by the traders.