“Wala na, kapag inani pa namin ‘yan, kami din yung napagod mag-ani.” - Benguet farmers abandon harvests due to labor and logistical costs

Benguet, Philippines – With plummeting farmgate prices, high fuel costs, and oversupply, vegetable farmers in Benguet are left with no choice but to abandon and destroy their crops, turning them into fertilizers for the land.

This is the plight farmers face this harvest season, as farmgate prices for April 2026 dropped to P4.00–P8.00 per kilo for major crops like cabbage—far below the P18.00–P20.00 production cost. Another challenge farmers face is the oversupply of crops and weak market demand. On top of these is the skyrocketing price of diesel in the Philippines, which has already exceeded P100.00 per liter, making it even harder for farmers to deliver their produce to the market.

Unable to cover labor and logistical costs, many farmers in Benguet are forced to leave their crops to rot in the fields, with most of them destroying vegetables such as cabbages to serve as fertilizer for the next cropping season. Some are resorting to dumping or giving away unsold crops.

This situation has left many farmers in debt and struggling to recover their losses, based on interviews with national and international media outlets.

One of the farmers in Atok, Elmo Chuga, shared their ordeal in an interview with GMA’s 24 Oras on April 9, saying, “Wala na, kapag inani pa namin ‘yan, kami din yung napagod mag-ani. Wala namang kahit kunti man lang na papunta sa amin.”

Among the measures taken by the Department of Agriculture in late March 2026 to address the oversupply of crops was the dispatch of 18 trucks to transport vegetables from Benguet and link them to key markets in Metro Manila.