The livelihood and survival of Filipino farmers are being threatened by the onslaught of cheap vegetable imports from China, an international expert on vegetable production has warned, according to The Inquirer.net

Speaking at the Philippines’ 1st National Vegetable Marketing Summit last week, Peter Batt, assistant professor at the University of Mindanao (UM), said the only way to counter the influx of cheap vegetables from China was for the government to help farmers increase their production and efficiency.

“The capability of small-scale farmers to produce more should be improved to thwart the deluge of these vegetables,” Mr Batt said.

He said the government could invest in programmes for productivity enhancement, infrastructure, and provide incentives—not only to multinational companies—but to small-scale vegetable growers as well. “Let us keep China as far away as we can,” he said.

An agriculture official admitted that 50 per cent of vegetables being sold in Southern Mindanao alone came from China.

Rey Acain, president of the Vegetable Producers’ Council of Southern Mindanao, said cheap vegetable from China was expected to flood the country when the World Trade Organization-General Agreement on Tariff and Trades (WTO-GATT) goes full swing by 2010.

“That’s why we are encouraging farmers to go into low-cost production and also teach them to maximise the use of fertilisers and pesticides or go into other alternative methods so that they could compete with China,” he said.

Melanie Provido, director of the Department of Agriculture’s high-value commercial crop programme for Southern Mindanao, said the government was doing its best to help vegetable farmers in Mindanao.

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