From Seed to Harvest: The Fruit of My Cousin's Hard work

Look what I've got today! It's free, fresh from my cousin's farm—a harvest from his hard work. These are cabbages. The downside is that the price of vegetables on the market is so low it would make any farmer cry for justice, especially considering their investment in farming. Despite the low return on our products when we sell them at the market, we never think of giving up farming. Farmers are the backbone of our society; without them, we wouldn't have food to eat. Without their sacrifice, there would be no food on the table. That's how important farmers are, and I'm really proud of my parents and my husband, as I come from a family known for its farming skills.

Farming here in the Philippines is a significant part of the national economy, dominated by small-scale farmers growing a wide variety of crops like corn, rice and even vegetables, which are essential in our daily needs for cuisine making.

Here is the price list of the products in our market. The price of cabbage is low because of high supply but low demand; the same is true for Chinese cabbage (ombok or pechay). It's frustrating that we can't even recoup our farming investment when selling to the market. From October 26, 2025 to October 30, 2025, the price of vegetables here in our Vegetable Trading Centre. From 28 pesos to 30 pesos and fixed to 32 pesos in 3 days.

"Bukag" is a word from the Cebuano language for a basket, traditionally made from woven bamboo and vines, used for carrying goods and produce. It is a traditional Filipino craft that has evolved from a functional farmer's basket to a diverse range of products, including modern decorative items like lighting fixtures and storage solutions.

Source

This "bukag" is our traditional basket and is an essential tool for farming. Farmers carry it on their backs and transport those vegetables going to the market. Others usually drove a motorcycle carrying a basket or bukag full of vegetables that sometimes weighed 100 kilos. My cousin harvested four baskets (bukag) of cabbages. I guess this was the second harvest he had. And each basket full of vegetables weighs 100 kilos, or sometimes 150 kilos; it depends on how farmers arrange the cabbages in the basket. Farmers easily carry those baskets of vegetables because they are exposed to that kind of work. He transported his cabbages using his own vehicle, a multicab, to save on the fare when transporting goods to the market that travels almost 3 kilometers from our place to the market.

Arranging the cabbages in the basket.

Carrying the basket full of cabbages on farmers back to put on the multicab for transport. It weighs almost 150 kilos this basket full of cabbages.

And the other 2 baskets of cabbages.

Some farmers harvest vegetables at dawn, almost 3 in the morning, like my husband, so that vegetables will be delivered to the market as fresh. And from the market there will be buyers or commissioners who buy the vegetable products, and they will transport it to the city, which is on the Carbon Market in Cebu City. Others also transport their goods to Tacloban, for they also have buyers that they need to supply.

That's all for my blog, and thank you for passing by. Next time I will feature the vegetable trading center we have here in our place known as "Bagsakan ng Gulay".

Photos were mine using Oppo Reno5 A and lead photo was edited on Canva.

Lots of love,
daileen23