Prospects

As distressing as forest loss, soil erosion, biocide poisoning, and wildlife extinctions are, Buguias's agricultural system is in no danger of immediate collapse. To pronounce commercial farming hopelessly unsustainable here would be premature; the present system could conceivably limp along for years, as farmers devise makeshift solutions for each new ecological impasse. But we must wonder whether they will manage to sustain their living standards while doing so, and how much trauma their lands will suffer as a result.

For the nonce, at least, it would be difficult to substantiate the view that vegetable farmers are worse off for having abandoned subsistence cultivation. Successful engagement in a commercial economy has given Benguet's highlanders a degree of power vis-à-vis the Philippine government uncommon in small-scale indigenous societies, and the Buguias people themselves voice overwhelming approval of the changes they have undergone since the war. But the Benguet vegetable industry confronts an imperiled future. Already the economy is deteriorating, and absent an unforseen miracle, it will continue to do so for some time. Encouraged by their belief in the manipulability of fate to continue pushing back the vegetable frontier, the people of Buguias are indeed wagering the land against high odds.

As a counterexample to received wisdom in much of contemporary ethnography and development studies, the story of Buguias is instructive. But the particularity of the place and time—the uniqueness of Buguias's historical geography—cannot be overemphasized. It is essential to the argument presented throughout this work, as to the theoretical framework in which it has been couched, that generalized conclusions not be extrapolated from this one case. Moreover, the situation described is transitory, a fleeting moment in a historical process that defies prognostication. Schumpeter (1942) insisted that destructiveness was at the heart of capitalism's creativity. Destruction is amply evident in Buguias; whether the process could ultimately prove creative is a question for later years.