By Yvette Tan
AVANT GARDENER
It seems that one can’t open social media without encountering a post about vegetable dumping, its comment section filled with netizens angrily wondering why nothing is being done.
Department of Agriculture (DA) Regional Executive Directors (RED) Rose Mary G. Aquino, PhD (Region II); Atty. Jennilyn M. Dawayan, CESO III (CAR); and Engr. Redeliza Gruezo (Region IV-A) explained in Tagalog why vegetable dumping keeps happening, what is being done to prevent it, and who should be held responsible.
First, they addressed the lack of a planting calendar. “We’ve been advocating for crop programming, but farmers are still hesitant,” Dawayan said, reporting on what farmers and provincial agriculturists said during the Farmers’ Congress in Benguet and Mountain Province. “Farmers in rain-fed areas will only plant when there’s water.”
Other reasons include,” harvests being sold exclusively to trading posts, which will receive the goods whether the market is up or down,” as well as a prevailing attitude of “If s/he can plant it, why can’t I? What if s/he hits it big and I don’t?”
Aquino added that the more farmers plant the same crop, the less likely their whole crop will be ravaged by pests, which means that they will still have something to sell. “There’s a relevance when it comes to pest outbreaks,” she said. “It’s a big effect on income because an attack can be tantamount to a 40-50 percent yield reduction. That’s huge.”
Gruezo agreed. “Aside from the technical aspects, it’s also about values. We keep promoting venturing into other commodities, but they keep planting tomatoes. They say, ‘Dito kami jajackpot, dito kami lulugi, dito pa rin. (This is where we’ll hit the jackpot, this is where we’ll lose, this is where we’ll stay.)’ It’s their expertise.”
Farmers are known for their ‘to see is to believe’ attitude, and when they see their neighbor making it big with a crop, they’re apt to follow, which could lead to an oversupply. When this happens, netizens tend to place the blame solely on the national government without also holding more directly involved players accountable.
While vegetable dumping gets massive attention on social media, Aquino explained that it’s not the whole picture. “They don’t lose money 12 months of the year… There’s a time when they earn big. People ask why they don’t plant other crops. They plant [the same crops] because they know that there’s a time of the year when they’ll earn a lot. We can even declare them millionaires because that’s how much they sell,” she said. “They know that they’ll lose money during a certain time of the year, but they’ll break even or make more when prices are high.”
Dawayan explained that, for tomatoes in particular, one plant can yield 18 primings, or harvests, with each harvest yielding fewer of their desired size or color. If well cared for, the farmer would have made a profit by the 3rd or 4th priming. Some dumped tomatoes come from the later harvests.
She also addressed the common netizen refrain of “Why can’t they just turn it into sauce?” “It doesn’t work that way,” Dawayan said, adding that they have already explored processing. “Even processing has its own quality requirements.”
Aquino brought up something important. Even if processing were possible, would there be a guaranteed market for the resulting product? “Processing is preservation so that [something] doesn’t go to waste. But a majority of consumers still prefer fresh [tomatoes].”
Sometimes, an oversupply is actually a logistics issue. “Can it still be called an oversupply if there’s an excess in one area and none in another?” Dawayan asked. If this is the case, solving it will require cooperation between agencies and organizations, not just the DA.
This doesn’t mean that vegetable dumping should be condoned. What the REDs are saying is that the DA has been looking for ways to end the practice, but they can’t do it themselves. “The DA has two faces: national and local government units. We should be helping each other, but when there’s a problem on social media, [it’s National] that gets attacked,” Aquino said, adding that it’s important that each player’s role is understood so that the proper parties are held responsible.
“All I ask on the part of media is it would be nice if they also covered the times when the farmers hit it big… when they’re instantly buying pickup trucks,” she added. “Not just when they’re throwing harvests away.”
It’s very easy to blame a nebulous entity when something goes wrong. However, part of repairing a broken system involves relevant parties taking responsibility for their actions. As the REDs point out, the DA can only do so much on a national scale. Other players closer to the ground, like local governments, farmers, and consumers, need to do their part as well.
