BENGUET MAYOR PUSHES ORDIANCE ON CROP PLANNING, ROTATION

June 23, 2025 Provincial

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet

Incumbent mayor of this town and Provincial Board member-elect Romeo Salda on Tuesday said he supports the proposed ordinance on crop programming and rotation system to curb both the oversupply and shortage of highland vegetable products. “Governor (Melchor)
Diclas has asked the different municipal agriculturists to submit data and the inventory of areas in the municipalities so that we know the actual production and areas involved per municipality,” Salda said in a media interview. Data from the municipalities will be used in
studying crop rotation and programming in different areas to avoid everybody planting the same, leading to oversupply, or undersupply if
nobody plants a certain commodity.

“We have the inventory of the area and identification of the crops they produce, which we will need to pursue the ordinance and how to
implement the programming so that they do not plant the same kind at the same time,” he said. “We are not saying municipalities or certain planting areas should be barred from planting commodities, especially the high-value and high-priced ones, but the focus should be the big quantities produced.” Salda cited carrots as an example, which often experience an oversupply. “If one area plants carrots, everybody in other areas also plants it. We should try to appropriate the other areas for other commodities so that prices do not drop, causing losses to farmers,” he added.

Salda said that based on his experience as a mayor for nine years of this capital town where the different vegetable trading facilities are located, they are left without recourse but to help the farmers when they are unable to sell their excess produce. “We buy or we allocate gasoline for their travel back to their origin so that they no longer have to spend after losing from the unsold vegetables. We also have to help them, and we cannot just close our eyes to them,” he said. Salda said crop rotation has been proven to also help sustain soil nutrients needed to produce quality products without the need to overuse fertilizers and pesticides. He recalled that during the month of December in previous years, several types of vegetables lacked buyers, but in reality, prices must have been good and the sales high. There is a need to pursue the ordinance to avoid the recurrence of these problems, he added.

(Liza Agoot/PNA)