30/04/2026
The Last Farmers of the Cordillera
There is a truth in the Cordillera that rarely makes headlines.
The farmers are growing old.
Not all at once. Not dramatically. But steadily enough that, if you spend time in the fields, from the vegetable farms of Benguet to the rice terraces of Ifugao, to the smaller communities of Abra and Apayao, you begin to notice who is left doing the work.
They are not young.
This is not an anecdote. It is a pattern.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority shows that population growth across the Cordillera Administrative Region remains slow. In Mountain Province, some municipalities have recorded population decline in recent census periods, while overall growth remains weak, driven largely by outmigration. In Ifugao and other provinces, growth is minimal. In real terms, fewer young people are staying, and fewer are returning.
Agriculture, meanwhile, still anchors much of the region’s economy. The Department of Agriculture has long noted that a significant share of Cordillera households depend on farming, whether as a primary livelihood or as support.
Put those two facts together and the picture becomes clear.
Fewer young people. More older farmers. The same land, waiting to be worked.
For years, this has been treated as background noise. A rural concern. Something that will sort itself out.
It will not.
Because the decision to leave farming is not irrational. It is, in many cases, the most reasonable choice a young person can make.
Farming in the highlands is unforgiving. It demands strength, patience, and a tolerance for uncertainty that few professions require. Prices shift without warning. Input costs rise. Weather patterns are less predictable. A single storm can undo months of labor.
Parents know this. They have lived it.
So they tell their children to study, to leave, to find work that is safer, more stable, more certain. They measure success not by how well the land is tilled, but by how far their children can go from it.
This is not failure. It is aspiration. But it comes with a cost we are only beginning to confront.
Across the Philippines, the average farmer is already in their late 50s or older. In upland regions like the Cordillera, where migration is more pronounced, that reality is sharper. There are farms being maintained by people who know they may be the last in their family to do so.
What happens after them is not yet clear.
There is no shortage of policy language about modernization, mechanization, or engaging the youth. These are familiar phrases. They appear in development plans and in speeches.
On the ground, the gap remains.
Technology has not fully reached the small farmer who still carries sacks by hand. Market systems still leave growers vulnerable to price swings they do not control. Access to land, capital, and support remains uneven.
And so the question stays with us.
Who will take over?
Agriculture does not pause while policy catches up. Crops must be planted. Soil must be tended. Food must be grown.
The Cordillera is not just producing for itself. Benguet alone supplies a significant share of the country’s highland vegetables. When that supply tightens, the effects travel beyond the mountains, to markets, to cities, to every household that depends on affordable food.
This is not a distant risk. It is already unfolding.
There are still farmers who remain. Some are trying to adapt, to hold on, to make it work. There are younger ones too, though not enough, and often without the support that would make staying a real option.
They do not need to be convinced that farming matters. They already know.
What they need is a system that makes staying possible.
That means making farming less punishing, more predictable, and genuinely profitable. It means giving young farmers access not just to training, but to land, financing, and markets that do not work against them. It means recognizing that agriculture is not a fallback, but a foundation.
Because if we keep treating it like a last resort, we should not be surprised when the next generation walks away.
Without change, the outcome will not be dramatic. It will be gradual.
Fields will still be there. Terraces will still hold. The land will remain.
But fewer hands will work it.
And one day, the Cordillera may find itself with everything it needs to grow food, except the people willing, or able, to do it.
That is the part we are not ready for.
———
Opinion
Mia Magdalena Fokno
April 29, 2026
