Danilo Fernandez, a 63-year-old onion farmer, is fearful.
The month of March is the start of peak harvest season within the city of Magsaysay, Occidental Mindoro, an agricultural province in the Philippines. Onion costs are unusually low. Fernandez worries that they may fall additional.
In contrast to final yr, there’s surplus of onions primarily as a result of the Division of Agriculture (DA) allowed personal companies to import as a lot as 21,000 tonnes of the vegetable, or about 123 per cent of the nation’s estimated month-to-month consumption, in December. Efforts are actually being made to forestall the additional decline in farm gate costs – that’s, the worth of a cultivated crop minus the promoting prices – because the DA has ordered a brief suspension of onion imports till Could.
“There has at all times been an beneath–the–desk settlement between huge consumers and capitalists who can manipulate companies to import even when there isn’t any must. [The government] is aware of when harvest season is, so they need to already know when the time is proper to import,” mentioned Fernandez.
Filipinos eat a median of 17,000 metric tonnes of onions per thirty days. Importation is critical as the provision of regionally grown onions can’t meet demand.
A newlywed couple handled visitors to giveaways of onions throughout their wedding ceremony reception within the Philippines in January 2023. It was the peak of the onion disaster when the price of the vegetable reached US$14 per kilo – 600 per cent increased than the worldwide common Picture: Aldrik Gohel
It has been a yr for the reason that Philippines drew worldwide consideration for the value of its onions.
Firstly of 2023, costs surged to the purpose that a kilogram of onions was costlier than an equal quantity of beef and rooster.
Fernandez mentioned farmers like himself by no means benefitted from final yr’s value hike. They bought their crops to merchants at a low mounted value, however the middlemen resold them to the marketplace for as a lot as PHP800 (US$14) per kilo, about 600 per cent increased than the world common.
As well as, merchants who owned chilly storage amenities charged farmers 4 occasions greater than the common value, to accommodate the crops at the moment.
Final yr’s onion scarcity was attributed to a sequence of storms equivalent to Hurricane Nalgae within the final quarter of 2022 that brought about injury to farmer’s fields price as much as US$23 million. It was adopted by an invasion of crop-devouring armyworms which have change into extra harmful as local weather change brings hotter climate and extra unseasonable rains.
The federal government additionally blamed “unscrupulous merchants and hoarders” for excessive onion costs Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, Jr mentioned that smuggling and an alleged “onion cartel” had undermined the economic system.
Since then, key agriculture division officers have been dismissed after investigations into their alleged involvement in crop smuggling. Nonetheless, an agricultural affiliation acknowledged that even although these concerned in provide hoarding and value manipulation had been recognized on the Senate hearings final yr, no one was charged.
“Corruption won’t ever change. All we ask is for the federal government to permit us to dictate the farm gate value so we no less than won’t naked a loss,” mentioned Fernandez.
Onions being ready for chilly storage at a facility in Nueva Ecija, Central Luzon. Picture: Frank Cimatu
Corruption-fighting satellites
President Marcos, Jr prioritised the modernisation of agriculture when he got here into workplace in 2022, even appointing himself as agricultural chief, alongside his elected function as president.
After his first yr was marked by steep onion, sugar, and rice costs, he handed the secretary of agriculture place to a fishing tycoon and one in all his high marketing campaign donors, Francisco Laurel Jr, in November.
As Laurel grapples with the hovering costs of products, he has been vocal about specializing in digitising the trade in a bid to stamp out corruption.
The division is endorsing using satellite tv for pc information and area know-how to raised plan and monitor crop manufacturing.
Satellite tv for pc information displaying the state of harvest of onions, rice and corn in Bongabong, Nueva Ecija. The satellite tv for pc photos use a particular sensor that may analyse floor options to find out the well being of crops. Picture: Philippine House Company
“Satellite tv for pc photos can estimate the world and quantity of onions and different crops at a sure time limit. If authorities has this near-real time information, it should know the place merchants hoard their onions and different crops, and act on it to keep away from profiteering,” mentioned Arnel Tenorio, interim chief of planning on the Bureau of Agricultural and Fisheries Engineering’s (BAFE) data administration digitalisation division.
In contrast to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the nation’s major supply of knowledge assortment which deploys discipline sampling to evaluate crop well being and productiveness, utilizing satellite tv for pc imagery is extra correct as a result of it can decide the manufacturing of crops planted at any given time, he instructed Eco-Enterprise.
A collaboration with the Philippine House Company (PhilSa) goals to generate satellite tv for pc imagery to indicate the place farm-to-market roads, must be constructed. One satellite tv for pc “can hit three birds with one stone” as a result of it may seize which distant areas are in want of roads, in addition to the state of harvest of onions and corn, mentioned Tenorio.
The know-how might be used to extra precisely estimate when a farmer ought to harvest and when there’s more likely to be a manufacturing shortfall.
Onions and corn might be monitored in a trial of the know-how. Rice is just not included, even although it’s the staple most vital to meals safety within the nation.
Information gaps hound the sector
A satellite tv for pc imaging system already exists for rice montoring within the Philippines. The Philippine Rice Data System (PRISM) was developed by the agricultural division and world analysis establishment Consultative Group on Worldwide Agricultural Analysis (CGIAR) in 2014.
Regardless of the maps generated by PRISM that present which areas have plentiful rice as nicely crop injury after a hurricane, the nation has continued to undergo from inflation and shortages through the years.
Rice inflation within the nation elevated on the quickest tempo in nearly 5 years in August, paying homage to a 2018 shock that led to the top of a two-decade-old restrict on imports.
The worldwide rice disaster started within the third quarter of final yr when India banned rice exports to regulate rising home costs. However it drove world costs increased with Thailand and Vietnam following swimsuit. Rice imports grew to become costly, which led to a rise within the value of home rice.
Satellite tv for pc know-how like PRISM is meant to assist inform the federal government of manufacturing ranges in occasions of disaster. However it is just another technique of monitoring rice capability. The official supply of knowledge remains to be the PSA, however it’s riddled with information gaps, mentioned Raul Montemayor, nationwide supervisor of the Federation of Free Farmers, a non-governmental organisation of 200,000 rural employees within the Philippines.
In line with a calculation made by the Federation of Free Farmers, there was a 3.2 million tonne shortfall in rice manufacturing firstly of 2022, due to an inaccurate projection made by the Philippine Statistics Authority. Picture: Federation of Free Farmers
“The rice value hike within the Philippines final yr was because of a scarcity of correct, well timed information, resulting in poor programme design, flawed planning, and delayed decision-making,” mentioned Montemayor.
Utilizing information from the PSA web site, the Federation of Free Farmers made its personal computations that challenged the PSA’s projection that there would be ample rice manufacturing at first of 2022.
In line with PSA information projections, rice manufacturing would attain 4.74 million tonnes by the top of 2022, however in actuality, only one.85 million tonnes have been left by the top of 2022, mentioned Montemayor.
“When you take a look at the derived computation which we made, most likely in September we have been working out of inventory, so that’s when hoarding got here in. Merchants will maintain on to inventory so costs go up,” he mentioned.
Montemayor wrote to the PSA, mentioning the vast discrepancy of their figures, however the company replied that it might “proceed to develop and ideal our system”.
PRISM, for its half, mentioned it doesn’t straight increase rice manufacturing, however not directly influences it.
“Our major purpose is to help the division of agriculture in making knowledgeable selections for insurance policies and planning by offering well timed and dependable rice data. If the division successfully makes use of our information, it may influence rice manufacturing positively,” Clarizza Ann Lagasca, coordinator for PRISM, instructed Eco-Enterprise.
Tenorio mentioned most farmers have been unaware that satellite-based providers have been obtainable, and weren’t adviced on the precise time to plant.
In Asian international locations like Thailand, the federal government is ready to dictate to farmers what they need to plant and when as a result of they observe a contract rising system, the place personal companies buy farmers’ produce, with the federal government concerned within the facilitating contracts between farmers and consumers.
Within the Philippines, it should take “plenty of political will” to dictate agricultural decisions to farmers as a result of the sector has no such system, mentioned Juana Tapel, assistant director of BAFE.
Like most growing international locations, farmers within the nation have to seek out consumers who can pay them a good value for his or her items. In lots of circumstances, they’re compelled to promote their merchandise at a low value and even give them away as a result of they can not discover consumers, mentioned Tapel.
“[Contract growing] must be the course for our nation. Proper now, in the event you inform a farmer what to farm, however there isn’t any positive purchaser, then why will he plant it? It’s a problem by way of social preparation. If we don’t programme this nicely, the issue will proceed,”she mentioned.
Getting data to farmers
Even when information is ample and know-how is in place, it is going to be ineffective if the knowledge is just not disseminated correctly to farmers, mentioned Jose Vidal, president of farmers-based affiliation group Occidental Mindoro Provincial Farmers Motion Council.
DA is remitted to put in extension employees in every native authorities unit, tasked to teach farmers on information use to enhance their agricultural manufacturing and assist them market their items to allow them to maximise their revenue.
“Technical employees like them need to be current, from land preparation till the products are marketed. They need to take the lead in informing farmers when they need to plant in order to keep away from oversupply. However in actuality, it’s like they don’t care,” Vidal instructed Eco-Enterprise.
There’s a median of just one to 2 extension employees for each municipality of 1,000 farmers, mentioned the agriculture division’s Tenorio. Their work is hampered by restricted mobility as public transport and private bikes are used to go to farmers in distant areas.
An extension employee delivers a lecture to rural employees within the Philippines. Picture: Division of Agriculture
The extension employees additionally face a disparity in remuneration between excessive and low-income municipalities, the lack to discharge the capabilities of extension employees correctly because of a scarcity of funding, coaching {and professional} improvement in addition to low morale and confidence amongst extension employees, in accordance with a 2020 examine by the College of the Philippines Los Baños.
For farmers like Danilo Fernandez, they solely meet with extension employees at random occasions of the yr. He remembers the final time he met one was when farmers got hyperlinks to examine sustainable farming, which they didn’t perceive none of which they understood.
Fernandez mentioned: “We don’t perceive the information handed all the way down to us. That’s why we simply ending up farming on our personal, in the one approach we all know how.”
