Sen. Risa Hontiveros (INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO)
MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Risa Hontiveros on Monday called on the Department of Agriculture to expand support for local onion growers, particularly by providing them with irrigation and cold-storage facilities.
Hontiveros made her call in a statement issued on Monday following President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s recent acknowledgment of the need to extend assistance to the producers and growers of agricultural products.
“As mentioned by DA officials themselves, better access to irrigation will allow onion growers to plant even during traditional ‘off-seasons,’ and cold storage facilities will enable onion stocks harvested from February to April to last all the way to the second semester of 2023,” Hontiveros said..
“These reforms are needed so that high onion prices will soon be a thing of the past and not a yearlong trigger for tears for Pinoys,” she added.
Hontiveros reiterated that importation should “not be the government’s answer whenever prices of onions, sugar, eggs or other products increase.”
“If left unchecked, importation is a double-edged sword which can slash the already meager earnings of our local farmers and other agricultural workers,” she said.
She said she was hoping that the Malacañang’s earlier announcement of “calibrating” the importation of onion products was a “firm policy commitment and not an empty promise, for the sake of our farmers and their livelihood. “
According to Hontiveros, the Marcos administration should instead adopt a two-step policy.
First, import only half of the 21,060 metric tons of onion authorized by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Second, wait for the local onion harvests to check if they could sufficiently meet the nation’s demand before importing more.