When Hard Work Meets Good Luck - A lucky day for my Friend for Harvesting her Good Quality Carrots and a Better Market Price!

Farming is not just about planting and harvesting, there are many processes involved, and it requires a lot of patience and hard work. Without those, you won’t reap anything, and all your effort will be wasted.

Greetings to all farmers here on hive, most especially @hivegarden community. Another day, another farm updates but this time it's my friend farm.

Today is a beautiful day for my friend because, at last, it’s time to harvest her carrots! and she’s very happy since the price of carrots in the market is good right now. And you know what? Two rows of carrots bed can already fill one basket, and one basket weighs about 50–55 kilos. Isn't it amazing!? 😁

As of this month here in our area, the quality of carrots is a bit low because of the recent typhoons. Some of the carrots are good quality but most of the carrot are cracked or if not it's rotten. That’s why the market price for carrots is high these days. My friend’s carrots are quite nice because only a few are cracked or spoiled, most are first-class. She’s really lucky this time.

We teasing her how lucky she is, and she just laughed and said she would use the money to pay off her debts. I’m really happy for her because she’s such a hardworking person, and it’s rare for her to catch a good price like this. She is more lucky if the carrot crop were entirely their own. But even if it is only under a supply arrangement (meaning they share it with the financier), it’s still okay because carrots are expensive now and the harvest is good.

This kind of arrangement is common here in our place, we call it “supply.” The “bosses” are the ones who finance the materials needed for planting, and they usually own the land. After the harvest and selling, the farmers who took care of the crops get their share, usually a 50-50 split of the remaining profit.

Many people come here to Benguet to enter into such supply agreements because if the harvest and prices are good, the income is also decent, even if we're only “supplied.” My friend is really thankful that her harvest turned out well because she had been worrying about her loan from the cooperative, which is currently due this month. Now that she’s harvested, she can finally pay it off.

Not all farmers are in debt, but most of us are. Sometimes prices are good, but more often, they’re low. It’s like when the prices are high, the quality of the crops is poor and when the prices are low, the quality is great. Because of this, we sometimes go bankrupt and can’t repay the money we borrowed to buy fertilizers and other farm needs. That’s why people often say being a farmer is just like gambling, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but planting still continues.

Still, one of the best things about being a farmer is that we get free vegetables to eat, or free rice if we plant palay (rice). So to everyone who buys and supports our locally produced vegetables, fruits, and rice, thank you so much. You may not realize it, but your purchases, big or small, mean a lot to us farmers.

That's all for today, thank you so much for reading my simple farming blog. I really appreciate your time and support.

Always remember to keep smiling ☺️.

Mabuhay!