As the Philippines enters its peak harvest season, farmers in Benguet and Cagayan are grappling with a devastating surplus, with up to 100 tonnes of cabbage facing the risk of rotting or being discarded. This recurring issue stems largely from the region’s long-standing reliance on monocropping—a practice introduced during the colonial era that forces farmers to produce a single type of crop in massive quantities, inevitably leading to market gluts and price crashes. With limited access to cold storage and the burden of high transportation costs, many farmers find it more economical to dump their produce or use it as fertilizer rather than selling it at a loss to predatory traders.

To combat this, non-profit organizations are stepping in to facilitate "rescue buys," effectively bridging the gap between distressed farmers and consumers to ensure harvests don't go to waste. However, experts argue that these private initiatives are merely a temporary fix for a structural problem. There is a growing call for the national government to move beyond short-term interventions and prioritize long-term solutions, such as diversifying crop cycles, investing in robust cold storage infrastructure, and better strategic planning. By diversifying harvests, the country could stabilize market prices, reduce its dependency on food imports, and provide much-needed economic relief to the very people who feed the nation.