To aid affected Cordilleran farmers selling their produce due to the plunge in market prices, the Department of Agriculture saw some success in their initiative of linking the growers' crops to more potential markets within and outside their region.

The Department of Agriculture-Cordillera reported that through its ‘Veggie Connect’ program, a total of 149,689 metric tons of cabbage and Chinese cabbage (wombok) from 88 farmers from the province were secured and delivered to buyers from Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, and Metro Manila, noting that some buyers have expressed interest in acquiring deliveries in the event vegetables remain unsold.

DA-CAR Officer-in-Charge Executive Director Jennilyn Dawayan said this favorable result comes after their office’s efforts to bridge farmers to buyers by facilitating the sale of commodities and the provision of logistics. “They (farmers) authorized us to do the market-linking activities for them,” she said.

According to DA-CAR, vegetables successfully sold were from Benguet and Mountain Provinces.

Over the weekend, the agency said it will continue assisting the affected farmers amid vegetable production problems, particularly by shipping them to more trading posts all over the country using Kadiwa trucks.

Dayawan said that these recurrent agribusiness problems faced by the region are not only the DA’s responsibility and need multisectoral cooperation.

“The issues of agriculture are not the sole responsibility of the Department of Agriculture; it’s a collective responsibility of the DA, local government, farmers’ associations, and all stakeholders in the agriculture industry,” Dawayan said.