Support pushed for small vegetable farmers in Benguet

BENGUET. A farmer tills his land as strawberry planting season is now in full swing at the La Trinidad strawberry farm, a tourist destination famous for strawberry picking. (SunStar Baguio File Photo)
BENGUET. A farmer tills his land as strawberry planting season is now in full swing at the La Trinidad strawberry farm, a tourist destination famous for strawberry picking. (SunStar Baguio File Photo)

FARMER in Benguet, dubbed the country’s salad bowl, should be provided assistance to enable them to sustain vegetable production, a senator said.

“Bilang sentro ng vegetable and food production sa ating bansa, patuloy nating tutulungan ang magsasaka sa Benguet lalo na ang maliliit na mga magsasaka,” Senator Cynthia Villar, chair of the committee on agriculture and food, said during the 118th Benguet Foundation Day on Friday, November 23.

(As the hub of vegetable and food production in the country, let us continue to assist the farmers in Benguet, especially the small farmers.)

“We must remember that small farmers will be the world in the future. It’s not the corporate farms, it’s the small family farms,” she added.

Villar said a production slump in Benguet leads to shortage of vegetables that is felt especially in Metro Manila.

Villar said small farmers produce about 70 percent of the food being consumed globally, based on data from the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Some 1.5 billion people worldwide are involved in the operations of 500 million small farms.

Villar noted that the Technical Education Skills Development Authority (Tesda) has allocated P750 million a year to support farm schools in the country.

The senator also said Benguet is in a good position to take the lead in organic agriculture.

“Rest assured that I’m trying to address challenges that are being encountered especially in the certification aspect. We are going to pass a law that will allow certification,“ she said.

She said the law which will undergo a participatory guarantee system which allows the certification of organic farm P100,000 to P500 to P2,000 which is affordable to smaller farms.

Benguet also holds two of the biggest trading markets for highland vegetable produce from the province and other parts of the Cordillera region namely the Benguet Agri-Pinoy Trading Center and the La Trinidad Vegetable Trading Post.

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