To address the oversupply of vegetables in Benguet, the Department of Agriculture (DA) mobilized its own transportation fleet to bring the vegetables directly to Metro Manila markets.
The DA used its own trucks to move ten metric tons of vegetables from a farmers’ cooperative in Tublay, Benguet directly to Quezon City.
The agriculture department is also looking for ways to sell the vegetables outside the Cordillera region and helping the small cooperatives and associations to bring their produce to Metro Manila at much lower transport costs.
The DA is also formalizing the inclusion of vegetables from Benguet in Kadiwa rolling stores that will sell grocery items and farm products in all barangays in Baguio city.
DA-Cordillera regional executive director Cameron Odsey said, “We continue to arrange for the transport of vegetables from various farmers’ groups in Benguet to DA organized Kadiwa ni Ani at Kita stores in Metro-Manila.”
Benguet farmers were forced to throw farm produce as there were not enough buyers.
The situation became worse when Benguet and La Trinidad were recently placed under a three-day extreme enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) which ended yesterday.
The Luzon-wide ECQ also made it difficult to move faster the vegetables to their destinations thus further limiting access to the produce. (Jojo Mangahis)