Senator Cynthia Villar has maintained that the onion shortage is just artificial and that hoarders manipulated the prices.
Told about the drop in the price of onions, Villar insisted there was really no shortage, adding that traders hoarded onions during the last harvest.
“There was no shortage…They kept onions in cold storage facilities and came out with them at very, very high prices,” she stressed.
It was reported that the cost of onions significantly declined from P700 per kilo to P200 per kilo or even lower. The Department of Agriculture (DA) said this was due to the arrival of imported onions.
However, Villar dismissed the DA claims and also emphasized that farmers have requested to stop the arrival of imported onions during the harvest season. With imported onions flooding the local market, farmers said traders will buy their products at low prices.
Since they have no cold storage facilities which were being rented by traders for keeping imported onions, farmers will be forced to sell their onions even at very low cost.
Villar further said she will push for amendments to the large Scale Agricultural Smuggling which will put provisions against cartels, profiteering, and hoarding.
The Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) meanwhile said imported onions are expected to be released to the markets within the current week.
BPI office-in-charge (OIC) for information section Jose Diego Roxas confirmed the arrival of nearly 600 metric tons (MT) of fresh onions – 218 MT of yellow onions and 370 MT of red onions.
The balance of the 5,000 MT importation is expected to arrive before and at the latest, on January 27, 2023. Imports that will not make it to the deadline set by the DA will be sent back to their countries of origin.
He added that the DTI and BPI are only enforcing what the President has mandated as emergency importation of onions.
Onions importers who fail to bring in their imports by Friday will face the necessary penalties as stated in the approved guidelines for importation.
The DA and BPI are currently touring all onion-producing regions and cold storage facilities housing onions to monitor production, assess inventory and make sure that farmers are given priority for storage over traders. The monitoring which started Monday is expected to continue till Friday.
The BPI is also on the lookout for smuggled onions that may have gotten its way to the supply chain. The agency, according to Roxas, is authorized to apprehend suspected smuggled onions that do not have the necessary documentary evidence that should attest to its legitimacy as legally imported commodity.