malaysiangBAGUIO CITY: The Department of Agriculture in the Cordillera Administrative Region (DA-CAR) on Friday linked farmers with buyers to help dispose of and sell more than two tons of cabbages unsold at the different trading posts in La Trinidad, Benguet.
‘There are about one ton being delivered to the different government offices based in Baguio after they placed (an) order on the call of our director to help the farmers by buying their unsold produce,’ said Aida Pagtan, chief of the Regional Agriculture and Fisheries Information Service (RAFIS) in a message to the Philippine News Agency.
She said as of 8:30 a.m. on Friday, about 1,900 kilograms of both green leafy and highly perishable vegetables have been ordered by the Cordillera offices of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, National Economic Development Authority, National Bureau of Investigation, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Human Settlement and Urban Development, National Police Commission, Bangko Sentral ng P
ilipinas, Department of Foreign Affairs, Government Service Insurance System, Professional Regulation Commission, Department of Trade and Industry and the personnel of the different offices of the DA-CAR.
She said several hundreds of kilograms of vegetables were brought to Pampanga after the DA-CAR marketing office and its counterpart in Region 3 decided to help dispose of the vegetables.
The vegetables were being sold at PHP10 a kilogram with an additional PHP2 to PHP5 to cover the plastic packaging.
‘Everyone, to help in the reduction of piling inventories/unsold cabbages at our trading posts, collecting orders @P10/kg for pick-up tomorrow at the office from the delivery truck mismo,’ DA-CAR director Atty. Jennilyn Dawayan said in a message to DA personnel, a copy of which was shared to PNA.
Pagtan said buying from the stocks is voluntary but knowing the essence of the message and the benefit to consumers, personnel individually bought for themselves and maybe for friends and relatives.
‘This is Bayani
han in action. Everybody moving, sharing a few pesos that will mean a lot to the farmers who worked hard to grow the vegetables but were unable to sell them on time,’ she said.
Pagtan said that based on the monitoring at the Benguet Agripinoy Trading Center (BAPTC) management office alone, there were about 175 trucks that arrived and transported vegetables after the goods were traded.
The trucks were bound for Divisoria, Balintawak, Urdaneta, Batangas, and other cities.
BAPTC receives an average of 125 trucks daily that transport vegetables to different parts of the country.
Pagtan said that their research division is studying the cause of the oversupply on Thursday.
‘Initially, they are looking at the faster growth that happened to the vegetables due to the continuous rain brought by (Super Typhoon) Carina and the monsoon rain. We will know what happened so that we can have remedies in the future,’ she added.
Source: Philippines News Agency
