If rice has terraces in Ifugao and other parts of the Cordillera region, so thus "Baguio vegetables." These vegetable terraces are one of the beauties of Cordillera Range that can be witnessed while traversing Mt. Trail. Yes, vegetable terraces! One amazing beauty that is overlooked but certainly worth all the attention.
One of the many things that Baguio City is known for are the "Baguio vegetables" like cabbage, cucumber, potatoes, bell pepper, lettuce, chayote, and more. When I was living in Metro Manila, people there think those vegetables come from Baguio City. When I listen to tourists while in Baguio City, they think the same that those vegetables were from the same city. Little did they know that they are wrong.
Yes, you read that right. Baguio vegetables are not literally from Baguio City. The vegetables happen to be in Baguio City because of the trading but not even for bulk wholesale. The volume of vegetables brought to Baguio City is just a small portion for retail in the public market. Bulk wholesale are done at the La Trinidad Vegetable Trading Post where trucks and trucks are delivered. So where are the vegetables coming from? Those vegetables are coming from different municipalities in Benguet and Mt. Province.
Some of the vegetable terraces start right beside the highway and from there you can see the terraces going down.
Like the rice terraces, these veggies version were built manually.
The others are right across from a distance and among the few residents. These locations and the ones beside the highway are somehow favorable in terms of maintenance up to harvesting because of accessibility.
Most of the farmers till the lands manually. The farms are from one hour to seven hours travel from the city where they buy their their agricultural supplies.
If there are farms near the highway, there are also in the remote areas where one would need to hike to reach the spot. Just try to imagine when farmers haul their hundreds of sacks of fertilizers over there, and when they haul their tons and tons of produce to the highway. There is no easy way. They do it manually.
Do you see the terraces down there? Click to view full image
Do you see the terraces down there? Click to view full image
Aside from the remote location, one of the challenges that the farmers face is weather disturbance. The mountains are prone to landslides during rainy season and irrigation is a problem during summer.
According to Department of Trade and Industry,
Cordillera is the best and primary source of highland vegetables such as lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, and other greens.
That is in spite of the many challenges that farmers face every day.
On top of the main farming challenges, farmers claim that their biggest challenge is the commercial part of their livelihood. Countless times in the past when farmers have to either give their harvests for free or just let them rot in the farms as fertilizers due to very low price. Even just transportation cost of their produce to La Trinidad or Baguio City will leave them on the negative side of the balance sheet. They claim this very low price which they cannot compete with is due to smuggled vegetables from outside of the country. Smuggled as they are, vendors can drop the price to the bottom where local produce cannot beat. This is one thing that the farmers have been crying out for decades and still hoping for solution from the government.