Some farmers were forced to throw away the harvested onions or let the crop rot because they could not sell them in Nueva Ecija.
As reported by Maki Pulido on GMA News “24 Oras” on Tuesday, some onions can be seen just waiting outside the house of a farmer in Bongabon, Nueva Ecija.
It is said that traders do not buy all their onions, so many of their products just rot.
Farmer Dionisio Pascua selects onions that can still be sold in the market.
“Yung mapapakinabangan pa tinatabi, yung iba tinatapon na,” said Pascua.
The farm gate price of onion is P30 per kilo to traders. However, it can be sold in markets at a price of P60 per kilo, such as the Commonwealth Market.
According to Crispulo Bautista, regional executive director of the Department of Agriculture (DA-Region 3), farmers can earn P100,000 even if they sell their onion harvest for P30 per kilo on one hectare of land.
One hectare of land can produce 10,000 kilos of onions. Therefore, its price will drop to a total of P300,000. From this, P200,000 spent on planting will be deducted.
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Unsold onions rotting in Nueva Ecija
But not all crops are bought by traders. It is also said that farmers cannot take the products to other places to sell because of the expensive transportation.
The traders are also said to have control over most of the cold storage to store the extra onions that cannot be sold.
“Trader ang nagpautang sa kanila so automatic pagkaganon ang traders ang bibili sa kanilang produkto. So kung ano ang sasabihin ng trader na amount presyo ng produkto ay talagang yun ang iiral. Wala silang [magsasaka] kapasidad na magtakda sa presyo nila,” said Cathy Estavillo of Bantay Bigas group.
Bantay Bigas requested that the government buy onions from farmers and transport them to markets.
The DA said they are working with other direct buyers to help the farmers.
The agency added that they would have liked to add cold storage, but they lacked funds.
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