Cordillera farmers dump tomatoes amid oversupply
Credit to Author: Bella Cariaso| Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0800
MANILA, Philippines — Farmers in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), particularly in Ifugao, Benguet and Nueva Vizcaya were forced to dump tomatoes amid oversupply and lack of buyers as farmgate price reached as low as P5 per kilo.
In Dupax del Norte in Nueva Vizcaya, a farmer dumped at least 200 crates or four tons of “sleep tomatoes” on Tuesday, according to farmers’ group advocate Rural Rising Philippines founder Ace Estrada in an interview with The STAR.
“When you say ‘sleep’ tomatoes, these stay overnight at Nueva Vizcaya Agricultural Terminal. The tomatoes are not yet overripe but since new tomatoes arrive the following day, the tomatoes need to be removed as NVAT has limited capacity to store. If you cannot sell your tomatoes in one day, the middlemen will no longer buy them as they prefer fresh harvest,” Estrada said.
On Dec. 5 alone, the stocks at NVAT reached at least 200 tons or 200,000 kilos of tomatoes, he said.
“As you know, our farmers are completely dependent on the buyers of supermarket, grocery and if the buyers have already reached their quota or secured lower price, what happens to the rest?” Estrada added.
According to Estrada, farmers were also forced to sell their produce at very low prices instead of dumping them.
“The production cost was higher compared to the farmgate. Farmers who are desperate are forced to sell even though the traders offer very low prices instead of dumping them. There will be overproduction if the farmers compete with one market,” Estrada said.
He said that the Rural Rising Philippines targets to sell at least 4,000 kilos a week to help the farmers.
“We’ll do one truck this week. Every member of Rural Rise is requested to buy 10 kilos. One truck is equivalent to 4,000 kilos,” he added.
According to Estrada, the dumping of tomatoes has been a yearly occurrence during harvest season.
“Last year, we were able to sell 60 tons. A farmer texted me that another dumping of tomatoes will be done this afternoon. We are just talking about one farmer and this is one barangay and this is just one town. We are not yet talking about other tomato-producing areas like Tinoc, Atok, La Trinidad,” he noted.
He said despite a slump in the farmgate price of tomatoes, the retail price of the agricultural product remains high in Metro Manila.
Based on monitoring of the Department of Agriculture (DA), the retail price of tomatoes ranged between P40 and P100 per kilo.
“In Tinoc, we are trying to contact the DA to try to catch tomatoes at source, meaning we will work with the local municipal agriculture office so that we will determine the farmers who will harvest so that we can harvest the tomatoes as we have to balance the quality so that our buyers will be satisfied with the quality,” he said.
According to Estrada, Rural Rising Philippines will also provide financial help to farmers who are already affected by the rotting of their produce.
“We just sent P1,500, P2,000 to help them even for their fuel. That’s the maximum power of Rural Rising Philippines but at least if we cannot buy their produce, we can provide a little financial assistance to them,” he said.