BAGUIO CITY – Highland farmers are producing tons of vegetables sufficient to the needs of the market, the Department of Agriculture in the Cordillera Administrative Region (DA-CAR) said on Thursday.
“The total volume being traded in all the centers is high,” Dr. Cameron Odsey, regional director of the DA-CAR, in the Ilocano dialect said.
He added that the region’s production trading reaches a high level of 2,000 tons or 2 million kilograms of assorted highland vegetables a day.
Cordillera vegetables are mostly brought to the National Capital Region (NCR) and reach as far as Mindanao in the south and Aparri, Cagayan in the north.
Odsey said the current frequent afternoon rains and good weather minus the strong typhoon are allowing farmers to produce a good yield.
“Since April also in May, in the past days and until yesterday, the average daily tonnage traded is 2,000 tons although there were days when it went down to 1,900,” he said.
During the lean months, the director said the lowest total daily trading is 1,000 metric tons per day at the Benguet State University (BSU) managed Benguet Agri Pinoy Trading Center (BAPTC), the La Trinidad Vegetable Trading Post managed by the municipal government, as well as other private trading centers located at Benguet capital town.
“This is not the situation now. Yesterday we traded 2,000 metric tons. As far as the highland vegetables are concerned, we have a good volume of traded vegetables or transported out of the region and brought to the different markets,” Odsey said.
He said they do not see any reason for the shortage of supply in Metro Manila considering that the trading quantity is high.
The director, however, said that with the easing of restriction in the National Capital Region (NCR) Plus bubble, there might also be some restaurants that have opened or resumed operations and are buying their supplies.
Benguet Governor Melchor Diclas, in an interview with Philippine News Agency (PNA) on Wednesday, said there is no shortage of vegetables produced in the province.
Benguet is the source of about 85 percent of the supply of highland vegetables in the Cordillera.
Diclas, a medical doctor by profession, also assured that farmers continue to plant and harvest their produce to allow Filipinos to have sufficient vegetables especially at this time when boosting the immune system by eating healthy food is important. (PNA)