THE sudden significant increase of vegetables being traded at BAPTC has driven more farmers, buyers, market facilitators, packers and porters from the different wholesale market sites to transact at the center. Not to mention the people who initiated the trading, transactions made a breaking record at the center last June 7.
Normally, peak of trading hours materialize in the morning. Recorded sum of 1,333,787 kilograms transacted in the morning shows an incredible increase of 50 percent from June 1 to 13, compared to the transactions for the whole month of May 2017 which was 890,262 kilograms. No significant differences noted from the months of February to May 2017.
The afternoon transactions from June 1 to 13 have an accumulated volume of 181,079 while the May 1 to 31, 2017 total afternoon transactions were 332,389.50. Potato, cabbage, Sayote, Chinese cabbage, carrots, radish, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumber, sweet pepper and lettuces are the most common commodities traded. Several buyers and truckers from Divisoria, Balintawak, Urdaneta, Pasay, Lucena, Bicol, Palawan, Iloilo, Tacloban, Cebu, Davao and other provinces do the trading at the center.
Some farmers from the different municipalities of Benguet, vegetable areas of Mt. Province and Ifugao actively brought their commodities for trading at the center. Positive feedbacks regarding the trading were gathered from the BAPTC’s social media account and calls from the different stakeholders and supporters.
Favorable increase of transactions is expected in the succeeding days and months as harvest season is approaching. The convenient trading spaces, parking and ambiance experiences may also lead stakeholders to continually prefer the center for trading.
Wholesale selling prices, volume of traded vegetables, production sites and product destinations are the most important information being monitored and gathered by the Trading Post Inspectors (TPI) for data and record purposes for future references especially in market linkages.
Farmer’s name, market facilitator and buyer’s names are the secondary information needed as well. Presently, at least eight on-the-job training (OJT) students from the agri-business department of the Benguet State University (BSU) were assigned in the Trading Post Operation Section (TPOD) of BAPTC and were separately distributed in shifting schedules to help in the gathering of the above information needed.
In line with the trading, other departments of the center particularly the Marketing Section are consolidating the actual prices of the wholesale selling prices of all the vegetables being sold at the center. The Management Information System Division (MISD) posts the collected price data on the LED board of each trading bay which serves as the reference price of the next trading day.
Meanwhile, memorandum of agreements (MOA) were already released to all stall space lessees for signing to be submitted on or before June 15, at the Institutional Development and Extension Service Office for filling. (TPOD-BAPTC & BSU)