As the place being dubbed as the Strawberry Capital of the Philippines in accordance to one of its most

abundant and visited products in La Trinidad. Benguet which is the strawberry .the Mayor Romeo Salda
had announced that the municipality would celebarate its 27 th Strawberry Festival after being cancelled
for the past 2 years due to the impact that was caused by the Corona Virus Pandemic

In his speech during the opening program, Mayor Romeo Salda vowed to sustain the local government’s
support to strawberry farmers by strictly implementing the town’s land use policy to ensure that the
industry will be sustained in line with this year’s theme “La Trinidad Strawberries Forever.”

Salda expressed his gratitude to the local farmers for contributing to the town’s economy and their
continuous support to the festival. He however lamented the conversion of some areas of strawberry
farm to residential and commercial. He also thanked the different national government agencies for
supporting the farming industry, it being the main source of livelihood of this capital town.

However due to effect of the pandemic , limited activities will only be conducted as allowed by the
municipal government include the conduct of the traditional strawberry lane at the municipal park, the
thanksgiving mass, online band competition and the strawberry shortcake baking competition among
bakers in the municipality.

The municipal chief executive admitted that the cancellation of the town's premier crowd drawing event
over the past two years had heavily impacted the livelihood of the hundreds of strawberry farmers and
other businesses in the municipality.

"The conduct of the limited activities for this year's Strawberry festival is seen as the best opportunity to
jumpstart controlled economic activities in the town. There will be minimum public health standards
depending on the alert level status of Benguet by the time of the Strawberry festival by the third week
of March The mayor noted that in the strawberry lane, local entrepreneurs will display and sell their
strawberry-inspired products for promotion.

The conduct of the annual Strawberry festival had been the town's major crowd-drawing event and it
gained global recognition for its Largest Strawberry Shortcake that had been included in the Guinness
Book of World Records in 2004.