By Leonel Abasola | Philippine News Agency
Senator Imee Marcos on Sunday, Aug. 28, urged the Department of Agriculture (DA) to conduct an inventory of white onions as she promised to raise funds for cold storage facilities in order to preserve the product of local farmers.
Marcos said that from PHP40 per kilo, white onions are now sold up to PHP400 per kilo to popular fast food chains by Divisoria-based onion traders.
She advised the DA to trace the traders who bought white onions from local farmers and find out if they (traders) are hoarding the crop in cold storage facilities.
“Without a comprehensive inventory, we cannot arrive at a well-calibrated importation policy that answers consumer demand but also relieves our local growers from low farmgate prices,” the senator said in her statement.
She said the national budget should provide more cold storage facilities for local farmers, adding that smugglers of imported white onions are now taking advantage of the situation by selling the commodity 10 times the usual price to the restaurant industry.
The DA has started listing the names of traders gathered from farmers in major onion-growing provinces like Nueva Ecija and Mindoro, but Marcos pressed for the inclusion of farmers in the Visayas and Mindanao to get a better grasp of the situation.
Marcos urged the government to already link more local farmers with the restaurant industry, ahead of the next major harvest in April while waiting for the results of the inventory.
“We can shut out smugglers from the supply chain through contract-growing, wherein industrial buyers assure local growers of income from their upcoming harvests and, in turn, are assured supply of (the) staple ingredient in their food products,” she said.
Last month, local onion producers admitted that their stock of white onions has been depleted.
Marcos expressed concern that low harvests of white onions in November will fall short of higher demand when Christmas comes around.
“Wet weather conditions will aggravate the situation if these cause white onions to sprout or rot in storage,” she pointed out. (PNA)
