Nueva Ecija farmers forced to throw away onions due to low farmgate price

Several farmers in Nueva Ecija were forced to throw away their harvested onions due to low farmgate price, according to Maki Pulido’s “24 Oras” report on Tuesday.

The onions were seen piled up along the road, while some left rot in the fields of Bongabon in Nueva Ecija.

Farmer Dionisio Pascua harvested a few kilos to be sold in the nearby public market.

“Yung mapapakinabangan pa tinatabi, yung iba tinatapon na (Those that are still useful are set aside, the others are thrown away),” Pascua said.

Currently, the farm gate price of onion is P30 a kilo. It is being sold at the Commonwealth Market for P60, which is already lower compared to P120 last month.

“Kasi po anihan ng sibuyas ngayon (It's the harvest season of onions),” vendor Letty Malasan said.

The farmers lamented the abundant supply has resulted in low price of the crop.

According to the Department of Agriculture (DA), farmers can harvest as much as 10,000 kilos of onions from a one hectare land.  When all sold at P30 per kilo, farmers can get as much a P300,000.

For a P200,000 capital per hectare, the DA said the farmers can still have around P100,000 as income.

“So may kita silang isang daang libo (They will earn P100,000),” Crispulo Bautista, regional executive director of DA Region 3, said.

However, the problem is not all harvested crops were being bought by the trader, who has the control over the purchase of the products.

The traders also have control over most of the cold storages to store the excess onions.

Several farmers have no cold storage and cannot also bring their products to the market because of the high transport fare.

“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 kapasidad na magtakda sa presyo nila,” Cathy Estavillo of Bantay Bigas group said.

(The traders lend them money, so automatically the traders will buy their product. If the trader said this will be the amount price, it is settled. The farmers don't have the capacity to set their price.)

Bantay Bigas appealed to the government to buy the onions from the farmers and transport them to the market.

The DA said it is linking the direct buyers to the farmers.

The department added it plans to build more cold storages, but lacks the budget. —Richa Noriega/LDF, GMA News