Connections with the Global Economy
The Benguet vegetable farmers became entangled in the world economy not primarily as producers for a global market, but rather as consumers of agricultural supplies produced in the metropolitan states. Certainly international economic ties are implicated in vegetables sales—the tourist hotels of Manila and the American military bases are large and steady produce customers—but little is exported. By contrast, most of the industry's inputs are imported. Russell (1983) has argued persuasively that the companies supplying these goods extract a substantial surplus from the vegetable growers.
The transport systems of economically subservient regions often assume a dendritic pattern, in which roads effectively channel resources from the interior to an export entrepôt without developing corresponding internal connections (see C. Smith 1976). Benguet is no exception. Here too a dendritic pattern is readily discerned in the still-developing road network. Internal transport remains tortuous, for almost all trunk and feeder routes culminate in Baguio, from which point a busy highway leads directly to Manila.
The agricultural inputs employed by the Benguet farmers fit into three major categories: fertilizers, biocides, and seeds. Each developed its own pattern of supply and distribution, in which one can trace the global geographic patterns underlying the vegetable in-
dustry. As of the later 1980s, Benguet is linked to all of the world's centers of economic strength, including several emergent ones.
Approximately 40 percent of the typical farmer's fertilizer budget goes to chicken manure. This input is domestic, produced on poultry farms in central Luzon. Tagalog merchants truck manure into the mountains, often delivering it (sometimes on their backs) to very remote locales. Chemical fertilizers are of two major kinds: ammonium sulfate, providing nitrogen, and so-called complete, a balanced plant food. Although the Philippine government has made efforts to foster a domestic fertilizer industry, most supplies are imported. At present, the largest suppliers, especially of ammonium sulfate, are Taiwan and South Korea.
Biocides (including insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides) are largely manufactured offshore by multinational corporations. As of 1986, four companies predominated, two German (Hoescht and Bayer), one Anglo-Dutch (Shell), and one American (Union Carbide). While their products are sold by local distributors, these companies maintain a strong presence in the vegetable industry, particularly through their advertisements and other competitive activities.
In the early days of vegetable growing, American companies supplied most seeds. Gradually they have been supplanted by Japanese competitors; today only lettuce seeds are routinely imported from the United States. Seed potatoes have been generally procured from western Europe, but local supplies (developed largely by a Philippine-German cooperative project on the slopes of Mount Data) are becoming increasingly available. Quality seed procurement has long been a bane of the Benguet farmer. The demand for seeds of early maturing cultivars especially is often unsatisfied (FAO 1984). Moreover, several Buguias farmers complain that they cannot grow several potentially profitable crops, such as scalloped squash, because they are simply unable to obtain seeds.
The multinational agrochemical companies dispense much selfserving information to Benguet farmers through their field agents. Indeed, these agents, rather than government extension personnel, are the main source of new technical information (Medina n.d.:2). Many, if not most, company operatives are local residents, usually graduates of the agricultural college in Trinidad. These agents organize meetings for growers when they have a new chemi-
cal to sell, selecting "demonstration farmers" who receive the product free in exchange for cultivating "test plots." The typical recipient is a successful farmer who possesses an easily visible roadside garden. Other farmers then inspect the experiment to judge whether the new input is worthwhile.
Such advertisements often prove successful for the sponsor. Farmers use substantial quantities of chemicals, although applications have decreased somewhat since the crisis of the early 1970s. Previously, many growers used biocides prophylactically and to great excess (Medina n.d.:2). But despite the recent decline, the spraying of biocides is incessant, and the environmental and medical consequences appalling.
In short, the postwar transformation both reordered Buguias's agrarian ecology and repositioned the community within the global economy. In so doing, it undermined the old bases of social hierarchy: pastoralism and Cordilleran trade. But at the same time, the new order presented abundant opportunities for the elite—both old and new—to (re)assert dominance. Here one may find both striking discontinuities between the prewar and the postwar eras and profound carryovers as well.
1. Headman of Buguias, 1901. Courtesy, Worcester Collection, University of Michigan. Themeda pasture
is visible in the background, with scattered young pines in the higher areas. On the far left, several
fence lines may be distinguished.
2. A Group of Buguias Men, Circa 1900. Courtesy, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.
Intensively cultivated uma fields, stone walls, and small houselot gardens are visible in the background.
3. Puwal Cultivation, Circa 1900. (Originally titled "Igorots breaking ground with pointed
sticks, Baguio, Benguet.") Courtesy, Worcester Collection, University of Michigan.
4. Southern Cordilleran Traders, Circa 1900. (Originally titled "Igorot carriers on the trail.")
Courtesy, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. These merchants have likely just returned from the
lowlands, where they would have purchased the dogs. In Buguias, women seldom joined such expeditions.
5. Buguias Village in 1986. Only the central part of the community is visible.
6. Sloped Fields and Pine Forests near Buguias, 1986. This area, just south of the village, has experienced
rapid field expansion and forest retraction in recent years. Note the roadway in the foreground.
7. Carrot Harvest, Buguias 1986.
8. Bulldozing "Mega-Terraces," East of Buguias, 1986. The bulldozer cuts deeply into the subsoil,
a nutrient-poor but friable material that will make an adequate cropping medium once fertilizers are applied.
9. Manbunung (Pagan Priest) and Sacrificial Hog, Buguias 1985.
The blood-soaked taro slices on the animal's back symbolize cash.
10. Ritual Dancing in Buguias, 1985.
Wearing a death shroud, the dancer is performing in the stead of one of his ancestors.