MANILA – Benguet farmers are losing P2.5 million daily due to vegetable smuggling in the country, a group of vegetable traders said Tuesday.

Agot Balanoy of the League of Associations at the La Trinidad Vegetable Trading Areas warned that farmers are running out of capitalization due to rampant smuggling, with some throwing away as much as half of their harvest because no one is buying.

“The farmers are running out of capitalization and with this smuggling, we’re actually, the farmers are actually throwing away, basically throwing away ¼ to ½ of their harvest, because it is not being bought, specially the medium-sized carrots. They are not being bought, they are being given for reliefs only,” she explained.

“Our problem is the cost of production per kilo of carrots, for example is P25/kg. So if a farmer would throw away at least 5 tons of his harvest, that would be too much for them to take,” she added.

“The monetary value of this 30 percent decline of purchase [is] P2.5 million per day."

Balanoy said more businessmen are buying smuggled carrots from China because they have a longer shelf life of about 2 months.

“Our carrots, just for 2-3 days, the carrots would already start to rot,” she explained.

Agriculture Assistant Secretary Noel Reyes also said that imported carrots are bigger than the ones produced by Filipino farmers.

He stressed, however, that smuggling is prohibited by the law.

"Yan po ang pinaiigting ng Customs at ng Bureau of Agriculture dyan sa mga pier at sa mga port na pagpasok niyan, dapat talaga makumpiska na yan at ibig sabihin talagang, wag nang papasukin dito,” he said.

Balanoy noted, however, that government can still do more to help farmers.

“We appeal to the government that it’s actually easy. The Bureau of Customs and the Department of Agriculture are saying that they need to do this, they need to do that.”

“They can just go to the different cold storages, they can just go the different markets and they will know. In fact we have given them an information about a certain person, we have given the name, the address, and then the system of distribution for them to act on it but up to now, they did not act on it,” she said.

Balanoy said she hopes government will take them more seriously.

“They do not even provide for the capitalization of the farmers, so how will the farmers survive with that? We supply 60-70 percent of vegetables all over the country,” she said.

ANC, 29 March 2022