‘Cable cart’ being developed to transport highland vegetables

MANILA, Philippines — Engineers and technologists from a consortium of universities in the Cordilleras are developing a high-tech upland farm-to-market “cable cart” to transport vegetables grown in the country’s fertile highlands to the lowland markets.

Enrico Paringit, executive director of the Department of Science and Technology’s Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD), said the project involves funicular technology as being worked on by schools led by Saint Louis University (SLU) in Baguio City.

The ambitious research and development effort, dubbed the Cable Ways for Agricultural Resource Transport System (CARTS) project, will allow communities to transport their agricultural produce to the nearest trading center through a cable tram line.

“We hope that through this project, we can ease the burden of our farmers in bringing their produce from farm to table and increase their productivity,” said Paringit, who expressed excitement over the prospects of servicing Mountain Province – particularly Bauko, which is the pilot site – and other highland farming communities all over the country.

“As a leader and partner in innovation, DOST PCIEERD will continue to harness the power of science and technology in making the lives of our citizens easier,” he said, noting that the DOST office oversees the R&D effort to be conducted by the SLU.

Engineer Janice Kaye Aquino, of SLU and CARTS project leader, said the first-person view (FPV) system employs small, light and highly responsive cameras and the system itself is battery operated, thus allowing the operator to have an almost real-time view of what is caught on camera.

The project is under Program Boondock: A Mountain Engineering Center Toward Sustainable Infrastructure and Upland Water Security and is expected to be completed in May next year.

Paringit stressed the value and culture of local communities where sustainability and resiliency are two of its most important pillars.

“This is truly a momentous occasion for us at PCIEERD because of our desire to highlight projects that harmonize the relationship of people, technology and environment in a manner that respects culture. We were really pushing for this project to happen,” Paringit said.

This was funded under the DOST Grants-In-Aid Program amounting to P13 million.

The CARTS cable cart tram line prototype of the project will be in Bauko in Mountain Province which will be equipped with the FPV system and an electric motor which can be utilized via variable-frequency drive with a smart control system or can be done through a mobile application.

The groundbreaking ceremony spearheaded by DOST-PCIEERD was attended by their counterparts in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Bauko and Mountain Province local officials, and the Towaden-Bito Farmers Association project beneficiaries and other stakeholders.

Bauko town is one of the highly elevated areas in the Cordilleras, where the road network remains a challenge to locals.

In the 2022 rankings released by the Cities and Municipalities Competitive Index of the Department of Trade and Industry, Bauko was at the 170th spot with a score of -20 percent for infrastructure, of which road network scored 0.0005, also the lowest of the 10 indicators including distance to ports, availability of basic utilities, transportation vehicles, education, health, local government unit investment, accommodation capacity, information technology capacity, and financial technology capacity.