AGRICULTURE

Oversupply caused price drop on highland vegs – agri group

Vegetables from Benguet including radish, cabbage, and wombok or Chinese cabbage are being sold at a sari-sari store inside Provident Village in Marikina City for P20/kilo, on Tuesday 9 January 2024. The P20 per kilo price point is significantly lower than the current price of P50 to 90 per kilo in most wet markets in Metro Manila. Lynette Bernardo, the sari-sari store owner, said farmer friends from Benguet asked for help as the farmers have nowhere to bring the produce, since most wet markets in Metro Manila are already overflowing vegetables. Photo | Analy Labor.
Vegetables from Benguet including radish, cabbage, and wombok or Chinese cabbage are being sold at a sari-sari store inside Provident Village in Marikina City for P20/kilo, on Tuesday 9 January 2024. The P20 per kilo price point is significantly lower than the current price of P50 to 90 per kilo in most wet markets in Metro Manila. Lynette Bernardo, the sari-sari store owner, said farmer friends from Benguet asked for help as the farmers have nowhere to bring the produce, since most wet markets in Metro Manila are already overflowing vegetables. Photo | Analy Labor.
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Due to a good harvest in December last year, prices of some highland vegetables such as cabbage, carrots, and Baguio beans dropped in local markets.

In the Department of Agriculture’s Bantay Presyo on 12 January, prices show that cabbage is currently ranging from ₱40 to ₱80.00 per kilo, cheaper compared to ₱60 to ₱80 per kilo recorded 12 December last year.

Carrots are priced at ₱70 to ₱130 per kilo, compared to ₱70 to ₱140 per kilo on the said date last year; Baguio beans are now ₱80 to ₱110 per kilo, which was ₱80 to ₱140 last year; Pechay Baguio is recorded at ₱30 to ₱90 per kilo, which was ₱40 to ₱90 per kilo last year; and white potato dropping to its lowest, currently priced at ₱90 to ₱160 per kilo, cheaper than last month’s ₱110 to ₱200 per kilo.

An agricultural group attributes this price fluctuation to last month’s good harvest.

“The DA has sent trucks to Benguet so that at least the vegetables can be brought here to Metro Manila.. so that is a good direction, but the real problem is that there are a lot of vegetables now,” Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura Chairperson Rosendo So said on Sunday in a radio interview.

In a video uploaded to Facebook, local farmer Brent Orlando Pulano caught cabbages from a truck being thrown away on a cliff in Tinoc, Ifugao, after being reportedly rejected in La Trinidad markets.

“No one was buying, and the price was low, so we just took it home,” he said in Filipino.

Meanwhile, DA spokesperson Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa said last week that there was no oversupply of main vegetables in La Trinidad and Baguio, following the return to normal vegetable trading in the said Northern Luzon towns.

He said that there was limited trucking and a few vegetable buyers in the first three days of the year, that’s why farmers sell their produce for a lower price, give it away for free, or just dispose of it.

Farm-to-market aid

The DA Cordillera Administrative Region extended last week more assistance in aiding their farmers in selling and transporting their produce to more markets in Metro Manila and other provinces.

The DA CAR reported that a total of 18,500 kilograms of Chinese cabbage, or wombok, and cabbage have been secured and delivered on 9 January to buyers in Manila, Nueva Ecija, and Quezon City using Kadiwa trucks.

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