Onion prices more than double in a year – DA

MANILA, Philippines — Retail prices of onions more than doubled yesterday to P200 a kilo compared to their prices a year ago, data from the Department of Agriculture (DA) showed.

Gilbert Cumila, Nueva Vizcaya Agricultural Terminal general manager, confirmed that the wholesale price of the bulbs is higher compared to the prevailing price for the same period in 2022.

“In March (2023) during the peak of harvest season, the wholesale price of onions dropped to P60 per kilo but it only lasted two weeks and then abruptly went up to more than P100 per kilo,” Cumila said.

“Compared to last year, there is a sharp hike in the prices of onions as it is only the month of May but the prices are going up,” he added.

Based on DA monitoring, the retail prices of the bulbs started increasing last Wednesday by P20 per kilo and some markets in Metro Manila are selling as high as P200 per kilo. Last year, onions were sold only at a high of P100 per kilo.

“The arrival of onions at the trading post is not that much. The wholesale prices are already high between P135 and P140 per kilo,” Cumila said, noting that this could increase further.

He added that the DA built a cold storage in Aritao (Nueva Vizcaya) where farmers were able to store onions.

“Last week, big buyers wanted to buy from the farmers’ organization but they did not sell onions because of the projection that the prices will further increase after two months,” Cumila revealed.

But Dan Alfaro, an onion farmer from Bongabon in Nueva Ecija, said onion stocks are already in the hands of traders. He noted that the next planting season would start in October yet.

“We were only able to store at least 300 to 400 bags of onions in cold storage compared to traders who managed to get the bulk of stocks of at least 10,000, 20,000 and even 100,000 bags of onions,” Alfaro said.

Rosendo So, president of the farmers’ group Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura, said the DA should prepare for an importation of white onions in August to prevent a repeat of the onion crisis in December last year. The DA, he added, should learn from that experience where a shortage was created amid the failure of the government to import.

He pointed out that because of the lack of supply of white bulbs at the time, institutional buyers like restaurants shifted to red onions, thus causing a shortage in the supply of onions in December 2022. Back then, the retail prices of onions reached P720 per kilo.

So said the harvest of onions was already completed in Northern Luzon but is still ongoing for farmers in Mindoro. He, too, said the bulk of the stocks are now in the hands of traders. According to the DA, the country’s total onion harvest reached 283,172 metric tons in 2022. At least 29,728 hectares of land across the country are planted with onions. Meanwhile, the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) is collaborating with the DA for a joint research initiative on corn and onion farming in the country using space technologies and data.

The study will focus on generating geo-databases for corn and onion with several farms in Region 3 chosen as pilot sites.

“Geo-location will enable more comprehensive analyses of crops on a larger scale by integrating it with other Earth observation data. This will provide, at the minimum, delineation and area statistics of these crops. More complex research can produce information like cropping calendars, yield estimation, and damage assessments due to disasters such as drought and typhoons,” said Arlo Jayson Sabuito, a PhilSA science research specialist.

The collaborative research is set to kick off this year and is envisioned to help the government, non-government organizations, and farmers to make informed decisions on securing the country’s food production. –  Rainier Allan Ronda