Philippine E-Journals

Options, Decision-making, and Good Life: the Vegetable Farmers of Bukidnon

Lilian C. De La Peña

 

Abstract:

High-value vegetables have swallowed up a significant portion of the country’s cold mountains. The Igorot of the North first experimented with potatoes and now they are known for other vegetables, particularly lettuce, cabbage, baguio beans, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, and berry tomato. The northern mountains, eventually, became very small to the enterprising Igorot. Carrying with them their children and seeds, they moved to other mountains. In the South, they transplanted themselves in small patches, such as Mount Apo in the 1970s.1 Salinity, however, had taken over the fertility of Mount Apo’s land and diversification to other crops, particularly monggo, was one of the mitigation strategies taken by the Igorot. Salinity of soil is caused by too much use of pesticide, a problem common to lands planted with high-value vegetables