CORDILLERA farmers were challenged to produce import quality vegetables during the highland vegetables investment forum cum buyers-sellers meeting at the BAPTC Hall, Strawberry Fields in La Trinidad, Benguet on May 25.
Institutional buyers, partner companies and farmers from Buguias, Bakun, Mankayan and Kibungan, Benguet; Tinoc, Ifugao and Sabangan, Mountain Province joined the forum of the Department of Agriculture in the Cordillera region through Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Division (AMAD) in coordination with the Benguet Agri-Pinoy Trading Center (BAPTC).
Florena Pedro, Marketing Specialist II of AMAD stressed the importance of improving highland vegetables in terms of quality, safety and sustainability.
“With the Asean integration, our products must compete with those produced by other countries so we will not be left behind,” she added.
As a way of achieving this, Inocencio Bernard from the Benguet Provincial Agriculture Office talked on the Good Agricultural Practices and challenged the farmers with the current data on GAP certification he presented showing Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and other Asean countries have granted GAP certification to thousands of their farmers but Philippines only has 78 GAP certified farms. Out of the 78, only 4 farms are from Cordillera.
On the other hand, institutional buyers presented their proposal on how they will help the highland vegetable farmers in terms of trading and marketing with their linkages to other potential markets that can cater highland vegetables including strawberries.
Desiree Duran, GAP practitioner and owner of the Duran Farms in Bulacan also encouraged participants to go for GAP certification if they want to reach bigger markets. She shared her testimony on how she leaped from merely farmer producer to an Agri-preneur.
“Wala na kami sa poorest among the poor dahil sa tulong ng DA-AMAD and because our mindset is dapat tayo ay kumita sa ating lupa at produkto through GAP certification”, she said.
The forum wrapped up with the word of assurance from BAPTC they will help the farmers in whatever assistance they can offer to help the farmers as individuals or groups.
The second batch of the highland vegetables investment forum cum buyers-sellers meeting will be on June 22, 2017 which will include farmers from the remaining parts of Benguet, Tadian and Bauko, Mountain Province. (PR)