by Andrew Doga-ong

BONTOC, Mt Province (16 October) -- Local farmers in the six vegetable producing towns of this province agreed to follow the crop programming scheme to help stabilize the fluctuating vegetable supplies and prices in the market.

Office of the Provincial Agriculturist staff Connie Wangdali said the farmers committed to engage in the vegetable crop programming after a series of meeting-workshops with the farmers.

Wangdali explained that vegetable crop programming is a sort of zoning the planting and harvesting of crops to suit the market. Farmers involved in this scheme should follow schedules when to plant specific crops in one cropping season to regulate the volume of crops they will deliver to the market, she said.

Farmers are required to rotate the identified crops that they will produce in every cropping season and among the barangays in every participating municipality.

Crop programming will also address the problem on the unstable supply and help regulate vegetable prices. It also discourages the vegetable farmers in their practice of planting the same crop in the same season that usually result to oversupply in the market. Oversupply usually lead to weak prices.

Wangdali said their office is in the process of consolidating the finalized volume production commitments of the farmer so they can assist them in market linkages which the OPAg, Agriculture Business office already identified.

Governor Maximo Dalog is proposing that the multi-million cooperatives in the province could also be tapped to invest in vegetable marketing wherein they buy the farmers’ produce and sell the same to the market.

Crop programmed for the municipality of Besao are bell pepper and cabbage; Sagada will give importance on bell pepper and tomato; Bauko will focus on cabbage, carrots, white potato and Chinese cabbage, while Sabangan will concentrate on bell pepper, cabbage, beans and carrots.