Heavy rains and strong winds associated with typhoons often disrupt the activities of farmers in the Cordillera. In 2015, no farmer in the region was spared from the devastating effects of a tropical cyclone that struck Luzon, which resulted to farm and crop damages.

For the members of the La Trinidad Organic Practitoners’ Multi-Purpose Cooperative (LaTOP MPC), an estimated 80% of their total production were destroyed, including several greenhouse structures that are used for organic vegetable production. As a result, the demands of buyers were not met, and the cooperative and its farmer members, like the rest of the region’s farmers, incurred huge losses.

Over time, LaTOP MPC gradually recovered, thanks to the hard work and perseverance of its farmer members. Also, with their micro enterprise subproject under the Department of Agriculture – Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP), they were provided with 30 meters of greenhouse plastic, 225 packs of vegetable seeds, and 500 sacks of bio-organic fertilizers to support their organic vegetable production.

“The main business of our cooperative is organic vegetable production and every time a typhoon hits us, the greenhouses of our members are always damaged which adversely affects our production and marketing,” LaTOP MPC BOD member and OIC-Manager Cesar Galvey shared.

He further added that the production inputs they received through their micro enterprise subproject were distributed to qualified members, which helped them rehabilitate their greenhouses and eventually recover losses from the typhoon.

“We would like to attain the sustainable production of crops even during rainy season where we usually experience shortage of organic vegetables and through the assistance of the DA-PRDP, we were able to help our farmer members. We hope to help them more in the coming years,” Galvey added.

To date, the LaTOP MPC is continuously marketing organic vegetables produced by more than 150 farmer members from La Trinidad, and also from other municipalities of Benguet. They recently crafted their Operations Manual (OM) for their enterprise, which includes policies and sanctions on how they will effectively implement and sustain their enterprise as to their financial and organizational supervision.

Elvy T. Estacio (DA-PRDP RPCO-CAR InfoACE Unit)