NextGen Day

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) is allocating an additional PHP94.6 million to onion production this year as part of its High-Value Crops Development Program.

According to a news release issued on Friday, the money will be used to purchase planting materials for red and yellow onion varieties, as well as organic and inorganic fertilizers, which will be dispersed to important onion-growing provinces.

The decision came after a recent meeting with onion farmers from Nueva Ecija and Mindoro, which was convened by Agriculture Secretary William Dar.

One of the main issues voiced by the farmer-leaders was the drop in local onion prices as a result of the ongoing influx of imported onions, which are sold at a lower price.

In 2021, the farmgate price of onions fell by PHP6 per kilo.

They also requested assistance from the DA in marketing their products and setting up post-harvest and storage facilities, to which Dar agreed to limit imports and build more cold storage facilities in strategic locations to extend the shelf life of local harvest.

“Since 2018, we’ve been working on the issue of space and storage to allow our farmers to temporarily store their surplus. In fact, since then, we’ve completed the construction of three warehouses, each worth PHP20 million, for a total of PHP60 million,” Dar remarked.

Five more facilities are being built, including a PHP40 million state-of-the-art center in Palayan City, Nueva Ecija, supported by the Department of Agriculture’s Farm and Fishery Consolidation and Clustering (F2C2) Program.

He added that the Department of Agriculture’s Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Service will continue to help and connect farmers directly to institutional buyers and markets, as well as negotiate with the Food Terminal Incorporated (FTI) for a possible marketing and storage agreement that will allow onion farmers’ groups to use available space at FTI Taguig as a drop-off point while waiting for buyers.

This year, PHP31.97 million will be devoted to the mechanization of the sector in order to facilitate manufacturing and post-production activities. The money will be used to buy things like hauling trucks, tractors, hand tractors, seeders, and multicultivators.

Another PHP3.7 million will be used to build irrigation infrastructure in various onion-producing locations.

According to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, onion production fell by 11,000 metric tons (MT) from 2020 levels last year.

Ilocos Region had the largest production in the third quarter of 2021, with 8.04 MT, accounting for 61.2 percent of overall production. Soccsksargen came in second with 18.3 percent, followed by Cagayan Valley with 13.7 percent.

The Bureau of Plant Industry was also entrusted with managing the issue of import permits efficiently, ensuring that imports did not arrive during harvest to avoid down farmgate and retail onion prices.

The DA stopped the arrival of smuggled red onions worth PHP101 million in January.

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