Highland veggie industry week

By Danilo P. Padua, PhD

The Highland Vegetable Industry Week had its 8th iteration last July 11-17, 2026. I just happened to see the event by chance and briefly dropped by the municipal gym during the last day. I couldn’t stay longer because I had to consult a doctor.
I thought to myself that this must be a good program. They told me that the event is under the auspices of the municipal agriculture office, headed by Ms. Nida Organo. I decided to visit that office later to get some info about the event. Learned that the Veggie Industry Week actually started a couple of years ago, before the start of the pandemic.
Went there to have a copy of the saved messages of the various invited guests from day one, including that of Sen Kiko Pangilinan, Gov. Melchor Diclas, Cong. Eric Yap made, and others. There was none. Instead, I was handed by the very accommodating OMAG staff, a post activity report made by one of the staff members.
The report was mainly focused on the results of the many activities done such as vegetable carving and plating; vegetable art decorations; “Manduto Kito” – A La Trinidad Vegetable Culinary showcase; Kimchi preparation workshop – by Andrew Assistio Ng- a volunteer, who is according to the report, a foreign national; Culinary processing demonstration- by BSU-CHET led by Dr. Jao-jao Somyden- basic knife skills, preparation of picked sayote, pickled radish, and sauerkraut; and lecture-demonstration on frozen vegetable processing and preparation of veggie-enriched noodles by BSU-Food Science Research and Innovation Center led by Dr. Lesley Umayat.
The messages I was trying to obtain were not in the report saved for a very brief mention of two of such. One is from the representative of Cong Kenneth Paolo Tereng of KM Ngayon Na Partylist. The representative mentioned a proposed development of a production monitoring system to help farmers better plan their planting calendars. The system, per the report aims to provide info on the projected volume and percentage of vegetable harvests each month, enabling farmers to avoid simultaneously planting of the same veggie crop, minimize oversupply, and help stabilize market prices.
The proposal should jibe with the House Bill filed earlier by Cong Yap in Congress. I hope Cong Yap and Cong Tereng are consulting each other to make their work more meaningful , not overlap, and not competing or upstaging each other.
The message of Sen. Kiko Pangilinan, the chairman of the senate agric committee, through Henry Bacurnay Jr. of Bauang, La Union was more of a lip service, just acknowledging the role of the local highland veggie industry in the national econbomy, and expressing support and appreciation of the local veggie industry.
I was expecting plans to help protect, strengthen or boost the highland veggie industry from the Senate. The Senate should start mending their tattered dignity and crumpled honor by coming up with honest-to-goodness plans (laws to be more exact) that will ultimately redound to the benefit of the people.
By the way, HVIW is in the right direction by involving the private entrepreneurs to actively participate in the Program.
It should include in its future plans children-focused activities to make them (the children) really like eating vegetables. This is to make them more glowing, less prone to illness and perform better in school. More focus too an agri-preneurs.
We should wish the HVIW future success and more meaningful activities in really helping to advance the Local Highland Vegetable Industry
And there should be better promotion for the various activities so more interested people can attend and be empowered.**