The Department of Agriculture (DA) said Monday it expects onion prices, which have shot up to more than P700 a kilo in some markets, to fall below P170 a kilo later this year as the supply of the commodity stabilizes with the coming harvest.
Agriculture Assistant Secretary and DA spokesperson Kristine Evangelista also said cold storage facilities put up in strategic areas would extend the shelf life of the onions that are harvested.
“I hope it will be less than P170. I hope we can see months wherein we see P80. But the thing is, we are also looking at price stability. We’re trying to help our farmers make price points at which their farm gate prices will be stable. They know how to spread their losses as well, and to come up with price points that will be stable all throughout the year, considering also the cost of cold storage facilities,” Evangelista said in an interview on ANC.
By the middle of January, the DA said it is expecting a lower price of onions amid efforts to boost the supply in markets.
“Jan. 15 is the start of harvest. Of course, the peak is March and April, but with the better supply, then we can see prices going down,” she said.
The Agriculture Department on Thursday set the suggested retail price (SRP) of red onions per kilo in the wet markets in the National Capital Region (NCR) at P250—but the actual price of the commodity has reached three times that amount in one Cebu City public market.
In Blumentritt Market in Manila where red onions go for P640 a kilo, some consumers have resorted to buying sliced onions because the cost of whole onions is so high, a GMA News report said.
Vendors said they could not comply with the P250/kilo SRP because they bought the red onions at P440 per kilo from wholesalers in Balintawak.
In the Senate, Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III urged President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to appoint a full-time secretary of Agriculture, as the price of onions continued to skyrocket.
The President is concurrently DA secretary because he wants to personally attend to problems affecting the agricultural sector.
But Pimentel said a full-time DA secretary needs to focus on the massive problems hounding the sector, including the high cost of onions and other agricultural products.
Pimentel said that while the President may have a very high standard for choosing a DA secretary, he sees the need for a person whose main job is to attend to the country’s agriculture.
He said this cannot be done by the President due to his heavy workload—and the fact that agriculture is not his expertise.
Pimentel said it was critical to strengthen production in the agricultural sector to avoid always having to import commodities.
“Whenever we run out of food like rice, meat and fruits, we resort to importation which is very expensive,” Pimentel said.
He reminded the public that the DA’s national budget for this year is 40 percent higher to its budget in the previous year.
The general public, he said, should feel the impact of the huge increase in this budget.
This year’s budget for the DA is P164 billion, which is 39 percent more than the 2022 budget of P117 billion.