TUBLAY, Benguet -- This farming town is aiming for a system of having a standard price for agricultural produce to battle the long struggle of Filipino farmers where prices are being dictated by traders.
Tirso Bayawa Jr., president of Tublay Organic Farmers, Practitioners Association Incorporated (TOFPAI) said during a forum on Monday that there should be a value or rate of the farm land, including depreciation cost of tools and labor of farmers.
“We should put a price, not the market. Once we established our own, we should see to it that the cost to produce per commodity once sold in the market is not overpriced or underprice. It’s a win–win solution for farmers and buyers,” said Bayawa in local dialect.
Eleven Grade 12 students from Tublay Central School presented a data from 21 farmers a summary of production, labor, inputs, marketing expenses and others including the possible income.
Based on the data, students said every vegetable produce, particularly in organic farming and special crops such as coffee and lemon.
Eighteen–years–old Jellianne Mae Langa and Sanshynne Ylar who are into agri-crop production and organic farming observed farmers does not keep a record of their production cost and their income.
Growing up in a farm, both gained basic knowledge and expressed to learn more and venture into agriculture in college.
“My mom told me to think about the future, there is a future in farming. Someday agriculture will be demand,” said Langa.
Florena Pedro, Marketing Specialist of Agribusiness Marketing Assistance Division of Department of Agriculture (DA) -Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) determined the presence of supply chain cost analysis, however, this is solely focused on the conventional commodity and needs to be updated.
“We are dependent on the prices of market. There are many factors affecting the prices of our vegetables and other commodities,” she added.
Benguet remains the country’s vegetable basket producing 1.2 million metric tons of vegetable in 2017, higher than the 1 million MT harvested in 2016.