MANKAYAN, Benguet – The municipal government urged farmers from the vegetable-producing barangays in the municipality to cooperate with the policy adopted by the provincial inter-agency task force on the management of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases on the alternate schedule for the delivery of their vegetable produce to the Benguet Agri Pinoy Trading Center (BAPTC) and the vegetable trading post to ensure sufficient supply of highland vegetables and stable prices of agricultural crops.
Mayor Frenzel A. Ayong said it is very important for the affected farmers to understand the reasons why the provincial inter-agency task force came out with the aforesaid policy considering the need to adopt stringent measures that will prevent the spread of the virus in their own communities.
“We had an extensive discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of prescribing the alternate schedule for farmers from the different municipalities and other neighboring provinces to deliver their vegetable produce to the trading centers in La Trinidad. We need to come out with a collective decision to ensure that people will strictly comply with the rules on social distancing,” Mayor Ayong stressed.
Under the revised alternate schedule on the delivery of vegetables to the trading centers in La Trinidad, farmers from Buguias, Atok, Kabayan, Bokod, Itogon, La Trinidad and Sablan in Benguet and Tinoc, Ifugao will deliver their produce on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays while those from Mankayan, Bakun, Kibungan, Kapangan, Tublay and Tuba in Benguet and Bauko, Mountain Province will deliver their produce on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
The provincial inter-agency task force directed the different municipal governments to issue travel passes to their constituents wanting to deliver their vegetable produce to the trading centers specifically for their prescribed schedules considering that law enforcers manning the checkpoints have been instructed to strictly enforce the new schedules.
Mayor Ayong claimed the sentiments of the farmers on the need to deliver their produce had been taken into consideration by the inter-agency task force but what prevailed in the adoption of the new rules was the concern for the safety of everyone, especially in preventing them from being exposed to people who might be carriers of the virus that will cause them to be the ones to spread the contagious illness in their communities.
He called on the affected farmers from the different municipalities to understand the imposition of the new schedule for them to be able to deliver their produce to the trading centers considering that their cooperation is required to prevent the further increase in the number of Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 2019 cases in the province and help in convincing the national inter-agency task force not to further extend the enhanced community quarantine after the same shall have lapsed at the end of April.
Benguet and some parts of Mountain Province and Ifugao remain to be the source of more than 80 percent of highland vegetables being sold in the different parts of the country through the years with Benguet being identified as the Salad Bowl of the Philippines.
By Hent