Veggie trade stays put in post for now

VEGETABLES that Manila consumes come each day from the La Trinidad Trading Post in Benguet, where farmers sell carrots, cabbages, cauliflower and broccoli. The plan to transfer vegetable trading to a government-built facility has been put on hold. EV ESPIRITU/INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet—Mayor Edna Tabanda on Tuesday said she would delay the enforcement of an order evicting traders, truckers and farmers from the vegetable trading post here and relocating them to a new trading center until a local court rules on its legitimacy.

Her move has set back plans to converting the current trading post into a wholesale center for marketing cut flowers, another high value product of this Benguet capital town.

Benguet farms supply the daily salad vegetables, cut flowers and strawberry requirements of Metro Manila. Vegetables are sold each day at the trading post, which was built to give farmers a better market price without middlemen and stabilize prices.

But the Benguet Agri-Pinoy Trading Center (BAPTC), which was built last year by the Department of Agriculture (DA), offers farmers a more systematic vegetable trading process, which calls for, among other things, a 25-centavo per kg trade fee and rebates for farmers’ groups that bring in high volumes of crops, said DA Cordillera Assistant Director Danilo Daguio.

Last year, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala had suggested turning the old trading post into a cut flower trading center.

The eviction order, which Tabanda said was a “relocation notice,” was the subject of a petition for permanent injunction filed by traders, porters, truckers and farmers at the Benguet Regional Trial Court.

On Monday, the petitioners obtained a 20-day freeze order that prevented Tabanda from enforcing the eviction. The court will hear the petition on March 7.

“We will wait for the decision of the court. If the court grants the petition for permanent injunction then so be it,” Tabanda said. “But if it is not granted, they have to transfer to the AgriPinoy [BAPTC].”

She said: “They (trading post occupants) were aware that they would eventually transfer but they were not moving, so I issued the notice to transfer.”

She said repairs on roads leading to the old trading post have also been delayed because the facility is still in use.

The transfer to the BAPTC was prescribed in a memorandum of agreement signed by the governments of La Trinidad and Benguet province, the office of the Benguet congressman, the Benguet State University, which owns the lot hosting the BAPTC, and the Benguet Farmers Marketing Cooperative.

The MOA was approved by the town council.

But Councilor Francis Lee said “nowhere in [the MOA] did it say [we would] force them out of the trading post.” He said the eviction had made it difficult to convince the traders and farmers to transfer to the BAPTC.

Daguio said a study had suggested that closing the old trading post would be ideal for BAPTC to function properly. Only a few traders and farmers have been using the BAPTC since its soft opening in December last year.

“They bring in vegetables [in volumes] that are not enough for the daily requirements of buyers [because] more vegetables are sold at the [old trading post],” Daguio said.

“We informed the [La Trinidad government] that the full operation [of BAPTC] needs the closure of the old facility,” he said.