02/09/2026
Thank you. 🙏
Natatakot ang buyers na bilhin dahil malusaw sa biyahe, hopefuly tayo na mismo na malapit ang sumalo.
At salamat po sa pagtalakay ng Seed Fund, praying it materialize. 🙏
DA, La Trinidad tap farmer co-ops to rescue unsold Benguet vegetables
Delmar Cariño | September 1, 2026
LA TRINIDAD, Benguet — The Department of Agriculture in the Cordillera is eyeing farmer cooperatives and associations (FCAs) to provide a market for unsold vegetables in Benguet, which are often featured in social media posts showing highland crops dumped along roadsides and left to rot.
Enhanced southwest monsoon rains in August have made the situation worse as vegetable wholesalers and traders scaled down their purchases, causing a supply glut at the La Trinidad Vegetable Trading Post (LTVTP) and the Benguet Agri-Pinoy Trading Center (BAPTC). This has left farmers' produce at risk of spoilage.
The LTVTP, operated by the local government of La Trinidad, and the BAPTC, jointly managed by the DA, Benguet State University and the La Trinidad LGU, are among Northern Luzon's biggest vegetable trading centers.
Jennilyn Dawayan, DA regional director in the Cordillera, said FCAs will be tapped as consolidators of unsold vegetables at the trading posts, particularly those that have become second- and third-class produce.
These include crops brought to the trading posts but left unsold at the end of the day, as well as produce that failed to reach the trading areas on time after harvest. The vegetables become "overrun" crops as they lose crispness, weight and marketability.
Their selling prices then nosedive, with returns often insufficient to recover production costs, forcing farmers to give them away or dump them along roadsides.
Dawayan said FCAs, acting as consolidators, could network with processing companies to ensure that excess produce remains usable.
"It is heartbreaking to see our farmers forced to leave and simply abandon their crops," she said.
Regional agriculture officials said about 1,800 to 2,000 tons of vegetables are brought daily to the LTVTP, BAPTC and private trading areas in the province for sale to wholesalers from Metro Manila, the Bicol region and the Visayas.
No exact figures were available on the volume of vegetables going unsold because of oversupply and the reduced number of buyers caused by the enhanced monsoon rains.
Mark Lapid, general manager and chief operating officer of the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA), said his father, Sen. Lito Lapid, is willing to provide a seed fund to jumpstart the planned collaboration with farmers' cooperatives.
Lapid represented his father during the distribution of food packs to typhoon-affected vegetable porters, packers and small-business owners at the municipal gymnasium here.
Together with Mayor Roderick Awingan, Dawayan briefed Lapid on the farmers' plight amid plunging crop prices.
Lapid said his father could bankroll a seed fund to help FCAs establish a network that would find productive markets for unsold vegetables. If the DA's program with the FCAs succeeds, he said his father would ensure continued allocation of a support fund in the 2027 budget.
Based on the DA's current estimates, about P600,000 a day, or P9 million over 15 days, could help cushion the losses from unsold vegetables.
Awingan supported the establishment of consolidation centers to be managed by FCAs. He called on the DA to regionalize the measure so vegetable-producing provinces elsewhere can also benefit from the program.
