Filipino farmers leave crops to rot as fuel prices drive up cost of harvest

A farmer harvests cabbages at a farm in Atok in the Philippines on March 31.

Photo: Reuters Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have ⁠been left with little choice ⁠but to let their vegetables rot in the ⁠field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the conflict in the Middle East drive up the cost of harvesting, labour and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year-old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest ‌it, our losses only increase because of labour, transportation and packing costs.

We don’t earn anything from it.

That’s why we decided not to harvest at all.” Soaring costs caused by the Middle East war are piling pressure on Filipino farmers, with the Southeast Asian archipelago particularly vulnerable to oil shocks because of its heavy reliance on imported fuel.

Wagayan’s experience mirrors the challenges faced by many highland farmers, according to Agot Balanoy, an adviser at La Trinidad’s vegetable trading hub.

Farmers harvest potatoes at a farm in Atok, Benguet, Philippines, on March 31.

Photo: Reuters A number of growers are halting harvests as buyers pull out as a result of weak demand and surging costs.

Balanoy said some buyers were cancelling or limiting purchases, reflecting a shift in consumer behaviour as households grappling with soaring inflation cut back on vegetables and opt instead for cheaper, filling alternatives such as instant noodles.

It costs farmers 18 to 20 pesos (30 to 33 US cents) to produce a kilogram of cabbage, according to Balanoy, covering basic farm inputs such as seeds and fertilisers, but farmgate prices have collapsed to as low as 3 pesos, and in recent days have hovered at just 5 to 8 pesos per kilogram.

The downturn has been exacerbated by the sharp increases in fuel ‌prices, which ‌have pushed up the costs of transporting produce from mountainous farms to trading posts and urban markets, while also ‌driving up the price of farm inputs such as fertiliser. “The increase in diesel prices has a really big impact ⁠on us, both during planting and harvesting,” said 27-year-old vegetable farmer Arnold Capin.

Farmers unload a basket of cabbages transported with a pulley from a farm in the Atok mountains in the Philippines on March 31.

Photo: Reuters He said long delivery trips often mean farmers are left with little or nothing once the produce is sold.

The latest government data showed that annual inflation in the Philippine

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