The Department of Agriculture (DA) will strengthen and streamline the monitoring and evaluation of supply and prices of locally-produced and imported onions and garlic.
“Onion and garlic are major spices that make our meals distinctly Filipino. Thus, we should ensure their adequate supply year-round by increasing local production, establishing more storage facilities and balancing imports during off-season to attain stable supply and prices.
That’s the aim of DA Administrative Order No. 2-2020, which we issued on January 3, 2020,” said DA Secretary William Dar.
The order mandates the DA policy and planning office (PPO), the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) and the Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Service (AMAS), to craft and implement appropriate medium and long-term policies and programs to enhance the competiveness of the country’s onion and garlic industry.
The PPO will determine the country’s annual requirement for onion and garlic based on a five-year historical data. It will coordinate with farmers for possible provision of support and incentives to ensure intensified production and aligned policies that will enable farmers to shift to high-value crops.
“We must define and operationalize medium- to long-term strategy that will, among others, provide the necessary support and counter funding with organized farmers’ groups, accredited importers and traders, and local government units,” Dar added.
BPI will conduct regular monitoring and evaluation of domestic production, as well as food safety compliance of both local and imported onions and garlic.
The DA will implement 100-pecent inspection on imported onions and garlic and mandate disclosure of inward foreign cargo manifests on these spices for food safety, pest and disease standards.
Cold storage warehouse (CSW) operators are also given six months to meet food safety standards and to register their facilities in the department’s database.
“All registered CSW inventories with local and imported stocks of onions and garlic will now be required to submit inventory to BPI every two weeks,” Dar said.
AMAS will disseminate information on onions and garlic and will update the supply and demand scenario to provide regular price advisories at retail markets and market intelligence and surveillance.
For the 2018-2019 cropping season, the Philippines produced about 208,448 metric tons (MT) of red onions and 31,866 MT of yellow onion; while importation of yellow onion reached 11,488 MT.
Local garlic production totalled 11,750 MT, while imported garlic reached 71,048 MT.
Earlier, Dar authorized the importation of about 35,000 MT of red onions from China to help bring down prices as its retail prices reached over 200 per kg during the Christmas season.
However, importation of the commodity will last only until mid-February, before the local harvest begins in March.
