Sen. Marcos urges DA to increase onion supply in markets instead of increasing SRP

CEBU CITY – Senator Imee Marcos who chairs the Senate Committee on Cooperatives urged the Department of Agriculture (DA) to increase the supply of onions that can be sold at Php170 per kilo in Kadiwa outlets and rolling stores before the New Year, instead of its plan to raise the suggested retail price (SRP) of onions to control runaway prices that reached P720 per kilo.

Marcos said, the DA should instead tap a neglected source of funding to expedite the harvest and direct purchase of locally grown onions for delivery to Metro Manila.

“Activate the P140-million fund from the 2021 budget which was realigned for the DA’s Food Mobilization Program this year.  Raising the SRP for onions from P170 to P250 per kilo only invites more ridicule, with market prices now more than four times the present SRP,” Marcos pointed out.

Marcos initiated on Wednesday, December 28 the direct purchase of up to 300,000 kilos of onions from Nueva Ecija farmers’ cooperatives whose grants she had sponsored from the DA’s Kadiwa program.  She also contacted Metro Manila mayors on the same day, to add Kadiwa outlets in wet markets and to map out the routes for Kadiwa rolling stores.

“The mayors of Las Piñas, Mandaluyong, Quezon City, Manila, Makati, and Valenzuela have confirmed their support.  I am confident that more onions can be sold at Kadiwa prices on December 30 and 31,” Marcos said.

She added that onion harvests will continue until February in Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union, Pangasinan, Batanes, Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya, Tarlac, and Oriental Mindoro.

“A strategy for their purchase and delivery should already be ironed out.  Down the road, a more efficient system of monitoring agricultural output must be put in place, or we will always be at the mercy of hoarders and smugglers in cahoots with corrupt officials at the DA,” the senator said. (Photos: DA-FB/Google Images)

 

 

 

 

 

“PlantSmart” program gives out 7,400 planting kits to over 200 communities in PH in 2022

CEBU CITY -- PLDT and its wireless unit Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) has seen homes, schools and urban gardens bloom under its “PlantSmart” program that distributed more than 7,400 planting kits to over 200 communities nationwide in 2022.

Cathy Yang, PLDT and Smart FVP and Group Head for Corporate Communications thanked all partners who helped conceive, build and actualize the PlantSmart programs. Through these collaborations, the Group underscores its commitment to sustainability and shared value programs to benefit farmers and Filipino communities.

“PlantSmart program demonstrates the Group’s commitment to food security and sustainability in the country, particularly in the Visayas and Mindanao and is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG): Zero hunger, good health and well-being, sustainable cities and communities and responsible consumption production,” Yang said.

More than 1,500 planting kits with vegetable seeds, loam soil and organic fertilizer were distributed to schools, people’s organizations, and local government units in VisMin, encouraging communities to grow their own food, Yang added.

In October, PLDT and Smart also turned over 600 planting kits to 20 partner-cooperatives in Vismin and with the donation of PlantSmart kits, the cities of Ormoc, Digos, Butuan and Cotabato were inspired to promote their own urban-planting programs.

“We are grateful to be chosen as partners for this effort that is aligned with the Department of Agriculture’s Plant, Plant, Plant program. A lot of us are interested in having our own small gardens at home, and with these free planting kits, we can finally start,” Cotabato City administrator, Atty. Aelan Arumpac shared.

Rev. Fr. Jimmy Tolintin, Parish Priest of Immaculate Conception Parish in Bantayan Island, Cebu is leading its farmer-parishioners to develop their church’s backyard lot into a farm.  Fr. Tolintin thanked PLDT/Smart for helping them build the farm at the parish.

“We will maximize these kits to help provide food and livelihood for our people in Madridejos,” he said.

According to Yang, the PlantSmart planting kits also helped 30 Mindanao schools reestablish their Gulayan sa Paaralan Program at the start of in-person classes in August this year.

The Group also started a PlantSmart GrowHub in Cagayan de Oro City, following the successful launch of its GrowHub in Makati.  The GrowHub is an edible garden grown by PLDT and Smart employees in idle office spaces, to encourage volunteerism and champion sustainability through urban gardening.  More PlantSmart GrowHubs will be sprouting in Bukidnon soon, Yang said. (Photos: PLDT/Smart FB)

 

 

Senator Marcos wonders where have all surpluses of harvested veggies gone?

MANILA -- Senator Imee Marcos has questioned where have all the huge surpluses of harvested vegetables gone, which have so far amounted to more than 700,000 metric tons (MT) this year.

Marcos wondered that despite bountiful harvests recorded in the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Supply and Demand Outlook, updated December 12, the destinations and end-use of excess vegetables remain unclear.

“This points to an unknown degree of food wastage and lost income for farmers and savings for consumers. The scenes of vegetables dumped by the roadside or left to rot unsold in trading centers are likely underreported,” Marcos said.

The DA’s statistics show that harvests of highland vegetables like cabbage, carrots, white potatoes, white beans (habichuelas) and Chinese cabbage in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Cagayan Valley Region and Northern Mindanao helped push up total national supply to 1,064,780 metric tons (MT) which resulted in a surplus of 642,500 MT or a sufficiency level of 252 percent.

The CAR alone reached a sufficiency level of 3,195% or almost 32 times what consumers in the region need, with its supply of highland vegetables reaching 801,978 metric tons (MT) against demand of only 26,083 MT.

A smaller but significant surplus of 100,993 MT of lowland vegetables like squash, string beans, tomatoes, eggplant, and ampalaya planted in the CAR, Cagayan Valley Region, Ilocos Region, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Bicol Region, and Northern Mindanao was also recorded, out of the total national supply of 1,701,213 MT, for a sufficiency level of 106 percent.

“Clearly, there have been more than enough vegetables for everyone’s chopsuey and pinakbet,” Marcos said, but added that the government’s capacity to handle harvest surpluses will remain severely challenged by persistent gaps in the country’s food supply chain.

The problem is not food sufficiency but food mobilization. Farmer-buyer linkages, transport access to deliver farm produce to local trading centers and the bigger cities, and storage facilities to prevent spoilage remain inadequate, Marcos pointed out.

Private sector engagement must be expanded now and be made systematic and sustainable in the long term to mitigate wastage, Marcos urged. The KADIWA program can only do so much, due to its limited budget.

In the Western, Eastern, and Central Visayas regions, the supply of highland vegetables was short by 55,093 MT, while a deficit of 105,574 MT of lowland vegetables was also recorded in the first two regions, with only the Central Visayas managing a yield above its sufficiency level.

Shortages in the Visayas could have been covered by surpluses from Luzon and Northern Mindanao, with much to spare, if an efficient supply chain was in place, Marcos said.

“The DA’s challenge lies in greater food mobilization. Beyond minimizing food wastage, jobs in farming will also be saved and new ones created in transport and delivery, possibly even in export,” she added. (Photos: Google Images)

Onion importation plan leaves low farmgate prices unsolved

MANILA – Senator Imee Marcos said local onion farmers in at least eight provinces face a bleak Christmas if the government’s plan to import the crop coincides with December harvests.

Farmers in Regions 1 to 3 said they are ready to harvest by the second week of December, particularly in Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union, Pangasinan, Batanes, Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya, and Tarlac.

“More than 43 percent of red onion harvests in the next three months will take place in December, with Mindoro’s harvests to follow in January,” Marcos said, citing the Bureau of Plant Industry’s (BPI’s) November monitoring report on onions both planted and stored in previous months.

The report showed an expected yield of 5,537.3 metric tons (MT) of red onions in December, out of the total expected yield of 12,837.9 MT until February next year.

But the BPI said that the sum of next month’s expected yield plus the 13,043.37 MT in monitored stock still point to a December supply shortage due to crop damage from Typhoon Paeng in October and increasing consumer demand toward the Holiday Season.

Amid high market prices of Php280 to Php400 per kilo, the Department of Agriculture’s attached agency has recommended the importation of onions.

“Have we forgotten our farmers? High consumer prices are being addressed but what happens to our farmers who are reeling from farmgate prices that are half the production cost?” Marcos asked.

Farmgate prices in mid-November stood at Php25 to Php27 pesos per kilo, compared to the Php45 to Php55 per kilo that farmers’ groups say they need to break even at harvest time, not yet including the cost of cold storage.

Marcos said, importation has been part of a cycle of price manipulation by traders in cahoots with corrupt officials in the DA and the Bureau of Customs. Turning a blind eye to hoarding and smuggling leave us stuck with the stop-gap measure of importation.

Local crops are hoarded to cause an artificial shortage, then sold when consumer demand pushes up market prices. High prices then back up a call for importation that pushes down farmgate prices. Traders then buy from local farmers at depressed prices and hoard the crop once again, while smugglers profit on misdeclared and undervalued imports, Marcos explained.

The Senate Committee on Cooperatives chairman added that low harvest incomes will force farmers’ cooperatives to compromise with traders eyeing import permits and leave small farmers unable to pay for dry and cold storage which have “already been cartelized.”