China crops slash La Trinidad veggie sales by 50%

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet - Vegetable supply in the province has stabilized but imported produce has hampered otherwise brisk sales.

Vegetable pricing has slightly gone down with potatoes selling at P30-P50 per kilo, carrots at P20-P45, cabbage pegged at P16-P20 and wombok at P6-P7.

Augusta Balanoy, executive director of FarmersDOTnet and manager of the Benguet Farmers Marketing Cooperative, said all prices pegged at per kilogram and wholesale price were monitored at 9 a.m. Saturday.

Balanoy said there are reports of imported China vegetables flooding the lowland markets these days, “especially carrots and potatoes that are heavily competing with our local produce.”

She said there are also sightings of other commodities such as broccoli and cauliflower in the markets, and these are in direct competition with the highland cash crops.

Balanoy said because of the phenomena, “the frequency of purchase of veggies of the manila traders lowered and their purchasing power dipped.”

Buyers' volume of purchase of assorted veggies, especially the major commodities, decreased to 50 percent at the lowest.

Vegetable traders at the La Trinidad Vegetable Trading Post observed the movement of vegetable trading is too slow.

Balanoy said, “A truckload of potatoes for example is used to be bought one time by one buyer, these days, at least two buyers have to divide such truckload among themselves.”

In the past, Governor Nestor Fongwan said the province has sent emissaries to the Bureau of Customs to ask for assistance since reports of smuggled carrots hit the open market, forcing the highland crop prices to drop.