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Cordillera farmers, dads block China carrots

BPI’s PRA a result of GATT-WTO

BAGUIO CITY (Apr. 14) — Cordillera farmers are beginning to experience the impact of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade-World Trade Organization (GATT-WTO). Thus was the reaction of PUMALAG-Cordillera (Pambansang Ugnayan ng Mamamayan Laban sa Liberalisasyon ng Agricultura) to the widely opposed Pest Risk Analysis (PRA) on imported carrots from China conducted by the Bureau of Plant Industry-Central Office (BPI).

According to BPI’s 2005 draft of the PRA, the said study started in November 2002 when China requested for market access of fresh vegetables including carrots. BPI maintains that the PRA was conducted because it is mandated under the Plant Quarantine Law of 1978 (Presidential Decree No. 1433) to prevent the entry of foreign pests.

“It is the only remaining option left now that the country has opened up to liberalization in agriculture,” a BPI spokesperson said in a consultation at the Golden Pine Hotel on April 11.

The said study identified not less than 13 foreign pests affecting the carrots from China. However, the BPI concluded that China carrots may enter the country.

Local farmers, officials and representatives of the Department Agriculture (DA) asserted that BPI reversed its conclusion because the said identified pests posed danger to the Philippine vegetable industry.

PUMALAG-Cordillera supported local farmers in opposing the recent PRA as part of a bilateral trade agreement with China but stressed that the PRA is not the real problem.

According to Fernando Bagyan, a convenor of PUMALAG, the GATT-WTO is the main culprit. He explained that WTO member countries are using the bilateral trade agreement because the agriculture provisions are not yet in place.

Bagyan stressed that it is high time for the government to review the country’s membership to the WTO because the 10 years of membership have proven that the country can not keep up with first world countries. He added that the promised benefits of GATT-WTO did not materialize instead it brought about bankruptcy not only to Benguet farmers but to the entire Cordillera region.

Strong opposition

The consultative meeting on BPI’s PRA last Apr. 11 was met with wide opposition from local farmers and officials.

Over 1,000 farmers picketed in front of the Golden Pine Hotel, where the consultative meeting was held to lobby for the termination of the PRA and scrap any bilateral trade agreement between the Philippines and China. The said picket was staged while a consultative meeting between BPI and representatives of various stakeholders was going on inside the said hotel.

In a statement, Benguet Farmers’ Federation Inc. (BFFI) said that around 200,000 local farmers would be displaced if the said trade agreement would push through. According to the statement, majority of the province’s population live in the rural areas and are dependent on agriculture.

In an interview, Edwin Bandao, a member of the BFFI from Bakun town said that instead of conducting studies for the importation of carrots from China, the government should provide technical and financial assistance to local farmers.

“We are selling carrots at P12 a kilo, at this rate we are at the losing end especially with the soaring prices of farm inputs,” Bandao lamented in the vernacular.

Three other women from Kibungan town expressed fear that imported carrots are being sold in the local market. They used to get P18-20 per kilo of carrots.

Another farmer, Lina Cuanso, 53, said that they hardly break-even. Some farmers, she said, even lose from the low prices in the market, citing that some of them end up victims of the “pasuplay” system, a loaning scheme employing usurious rates.

Reacting to reports that imported carrots would only be disposed in the metropolis, they say that less and less traders are coming to fetch their produce.

“Awan ti um-umay a gumatang,” Patricia Francisco, 55, told NORDIS.

Bandao added that there is no reason to import carrots because local farmers still meet the demand.

According to the 2004 report of the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPA), Benguet alone produces 22.01 metric tons of carrots per hectare. The OPA also reported that the average area planted with carrots in the province is 3, 292 has. The total carrot production of the province for the year 2004 is 72,446 metric tons.

At the consultation, Benguet and Mountain Province officials led by Governor Borromeo Melchor and former Mountain Province governor Cesario Malinias, asked BPI to reverse its recommendation. The officials stressed that BPI’s recommendation for the entry of China carrot is like favoring the signing of the bilateral trade agreement.

In an earlier resolution, the Benguet provincial board expressed disappointment over the conduct of the PRA. The said resolution stated that recent PRA “has been tainted with doubts”.

BPI Officer-in-charge Carlito Baron assured that all the suggestions and recommendations gathered during the consultative meeting would be considered and incorporated in the draft. # Kim Quitasol for NORDIS

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