Vegetable farmers turn to tobacco

TUBA, Benguet–Don’t look now but the fertile slopes and valleys in this highland town that used to raise the famous Baguio vegetables are now devoted to tobacco farming.

The shift was triggered by the debacle that befell Benguet farmers whose vegetable produce are being eased out of the market by cheap stocks that continue to stream into the country both legally and illegally from foreign countries like China.

"Malaki ang lugi namin mula nang pumasok ang mga gulay galing Tsina (We have been losing heavily since Chinese vegetables entered our country)," Eugenio Palispis who tills a one-hectare lot in barangay Tubaan Norte told newsmen here last Monday.

"My family will go extinct (if we go on raising vegetables)," Manolo Mat-an who used to grow beans and sayote in his land said in the native dialect.

Palispis has planted l7,000 tobacco seedlings on his farm while Mat-an has l6,500 seedlings.

Now they look forward to a "rosy future" and having a "stable income" with virginia tobacco.

It was a tough climb going up here in barangay Tubaan Norte which is some 4,000 feet above sea level with vehicles screaming as they went uphill all the way.

Below is the Baguio-bound Marcos highway that is accessible from Agoo town in La Union.

But newsmen were treated to a visual panorama of rows and rows of green tobacco plants lining up the hilly terrain as the ride went on, the scene resembling that of the famed rice terraces in Banaue. The difference is that here it’s tobacco not rice.

Organizers of this innovative upland tobacco farming project led by the National Tobacco Administration (NTA), Philip Morris Philippines Manufacturing, Inc.(PMPMI), and Trans Manila Inc. (TMI) expect a high quality and "world class" crop that would be harvested from the area.

NTA officials headed by Administrator Mert Ellorin noted the "fertility" and suitability of the soil to tobacco growing as they showed early yields to prove their point.

They expressed optimism on producing top grade virginia tobacco here and in the surrounding areas including those in nearby Pugo, La Union which they said would be greatly competitive with those produced in other countries.

The NTA’s buoyed up confidence comes at a time when the agency has intensified efforts to improve the quality of the crop to avoid a repeat of last season’s output, it was learned.

Roque Basso, a Brazilian native and PMPI regional agronomist for Asia, attributed the success of the project to climatic conditions here. "The relative humidity is higher (here) and so it’s better for tobacco," he said during the press conference.

Dr. Robert Bonoan, NTA farm development manager, doused speculations that tobacco raising will be concentrated in the highlands once the Tuba experience proves to be true as expected.

Poor quality yields in the lowland provinces last season were blamed on "salty" and marginal land areas that the NTA has now barred from tobacco planting.

TMI executive Matthew Diong said another reason for having quality tobacco here is that the cold nights here have the effect of inducing a good "rest" for the tobacco plant.

"In the lowlands, the plants are stressed because of the low humidity (there)," he said. "Here, the plants are on a hibernating mood at night time," he added.

Involving 20.8 hectares and 46 Ibaloi farmers, the project features a contract growing scheme with PMPMI and TMI providing free training and technical assistance apart from defraying production costs.

The farmers are also assured of having all their produce purchased by TMI which is PMPI’s leaf supply contractor.

NTA’s pool of farm technicians and agronomists, on the other hand, are rendering their expertise full time to the farmers that started during their 6-month training until the trading of their produce.