Onion festival takes off as farmgate prices rise
A FARMER harvests onions early in the day in the fields in Barangay Baluyot in Bautista, Pangasinan province. WILLIE LOMIBAO/INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON
BAYAMBANG, Pangasinan—When the farmgate price of onions shot up to P20 a kilogram on Monday, way above last month’s price of P8/kg, this was welcome news for the launching of Bayambang’s first Sibuyas (Onion) Festival.
“[The improved price] is really very timely and we are celebrating in support of our town’s onion industry,” Bayambang Mayor Ricardo Camacho said.
“We hope our farmers will continue to recover. I hope the prices will continue to increase,” he said.
Joven Junio, an onion farmer in Barangay (village) Baluyot in nearby Bautista town, said the price improvement “is not much, but at least we have a little profit.”
Bayambang is Ilocos region’s top onion producer, with 650 hectares of land planted to the crop in its southern villages of Manambong Sur, Manambong Norte, Manambong Parte, San Gabriel II, Paragos and Iton.
On Monday, floats drawn by hand tractors and adorned with onions and other products paraded around the six villages.
“In this festival, we will teach our farmers how to market our onions and how to turn them into processed food. We will involve farmers’ wives,” Camacho said.
Nestor Batalla, assistant provincial agriculturist, attributed the rise in the farmgate price of onions to dwindling supply. “Because it was cheap, many traders bought them and stored them,” he said.
He also said 70 percent of the onions planted here and in Bautista had already been harvested.
Some farmers have planted for the second cropping season, Batalla said, while others planted corn instead because of its good price.
Renato Tridanio, a trader in Manambong Norte, said the price increase was still not enough. He said he bought onions for P18/kg from farmers, but these were sold in Metro Manila for only P19/kg.
“We practically have no profit because we have to pay for the freight and handling costs,” he said.
Ariel Rabanera, another trader, said he bought the onions from farmers for P20/kg, way below last year’s price of P35.
“I’m buying for storage. I will sell them by September or October,” he said.
He said he would be paying P42,000 a month for storage in a facility in Metro Manila, where he can keep 12,000 30-kg sacks of onions.
