BUKIDNON FARMERS TO SUPPLY
TONS OF FRESH VEGETABLES
By Manny Piñol
Talakag, Bukidnon – Vegetable farmers in the four mountain towns of Bukidnon Province have responded enthusiastically to President Rody Duterte’s call for sufficient supply of food for Metro Manila in the wake of Typhoon Ompong pledging to ship tons of vegetables to Luzon.
Yesterday, local officials and farmers of the towns of Impasugong, Talakag, Sumilao and Lantapan committed to ship starting next week tons of fresh vegetables for Metro Manila to fill up for the expected shortage of the commodity from the Cordilleras because of the typhoon.
On Thursday, President Duterte directed the Department of Agriculture to ensure that there would be enough food supplies in Metro Manila in the face of the expected damage to crops, especially vegetables, in Northern Luzon.
The Cordillera is the traditional source of vegetable supplies for Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon.
Faced with the threat of Typhoon Ompong, however, vegetable farmers reportedly harvested their vegetables well ahead of schedule bringing down prices of the commodity.
This development, however, is expected to result in a vegetable supply shortage in the wake of Typhoon Ompong.
Yesterday, the DA’s Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) released P20-M as a working capital for the vegetable farmers of the IMTASULA Vegetable Production Area.
The amount will be used to buy the vegetable production of farmers which then will be loaded in refrigerated vans to be shipped to Metro Manila starting next week.
An initial shipment of one 20-foot refrigerated van will arrive in Manila on Thursday containing Carrots, Potato, Brocolli, Cauliflower and Cabbage.
The IMTASULA vegetable production area could ship as much as six containers each containing 20 tons of vegetables every week.
The town of Lantapan has an estimated 6,000-hectares of vegetable farms, Talakag 3,000 hectares while Impasugong and Sumilao 1,000 hectares each.
The DA is supporting an expansion program which aims to increase the vegetable area from the current 11,000 hectares to 50,000 hectares in five years.
(Photos of field harvests of Carrots and Cauliflower were taken in Miarayon, Talakag yesterday by the Biyaheng Bukid team of the Dept. of Agriculture.)
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