Vegetable Production and Marketing in Benguet and Laguna: Implications for Sustainability

The Philippines is home to an estimated 3.8 million households living in the uplands. These areas cover an estimated 15.9 million hectares or 53% of the country’s total land area of 30 million hectares. Upland households largely depend on the production of upland rice, coffee, cacao, corn, banana, root crops and fruit trees for their subsistence. But because of the subsistence kind of living, many upland farmers were encouraged to shift production to temperate vegetables. There are many difficulties in growing upland vegetables. These include low productivity, high cost of production inputs, attack of pests and diseases, rugged topography of the terrain making transport of inputs and produce difficult, and poor marketing system. Continuous intensification of land cultivation in the uplands also increases the risk of environmental degradation. The growing interest in upland cultivation especially for vegetables poses questions on how the natural resources in these areas can amply support these activities. Upland farmers can only protect their resource base if they can have secure access to the food required for a healthy and productive life. It also means the ability to grow and purchase food as needed. This also means that people will not only be concerned with growing crops but must be equally concerned with income, markets and natural resources. This paper analyzed the vegetable production and marketing in the highlands of Benguet and Laguna and identified the implications for sustainability.