The country’s self-sufficiency in onions rose to its highest level in a decade owing to technological advancements and enhanced farm productivity.
The country’s onion self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) jumped to 92.4 percent in 2024, the highest in 10 years, based on Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data.
PSA data showed that this is the highest onion SSR since 2014, when it settled at 96.1 percent.
On an annual basis, the onion SSR of 92.4 percent last year was 8.4 percentage points higher than the 84 percent recorded level in 2023, PSA data showed.
‘SSR shows the magnitude of production in relation to domestic utilization. It indicates the extent to which a country relies on its own production resources,’ the PSA said.
Industry groups and agriculture officials attributed this hike to government interventions that bolstered productivity and investments in cold storage facilities that prolonged the shelf life of the crop.
‘Onion farmers are making money, encouraging them to expand their planting area and to plant more,’ Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food Inc. (PCAFI) President Danilo Fausto told the BusinessMirror.
‘Cold storage facilities are being made available, lowering the possibility of spoilage.’
For Agriculture Undersecretary Cheryl Marie Natividad-Caballero, the decade-long increase in onion SSR was due to ‘strong partnership’ between farmers and the Department of Agriculture (DA), along with the support from its high-value crops program.
‘(Also,) operationalization of cold storage funded by DA, including those from PRDP [Philippine Rural Development Project],’ Caballero told this newspaper.
Last year, all of the country’s red onion stocks were locally produced owing to a bumper harvest, which prompted the agency to withhold any importation order for the crop.
In August, the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) said the government may authorize the importation of some 50,000 metric tons (MT) of red onions and 35,000 MT of yellow onions to plug the projected supply shortfall of the crop.
The DA had authorized the importation of 4,000 MT of red and yellow onions in February as stocks thinned out.
Earlier, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said he ‘silently’ allowed around 3,000 MT of red onion imports during the end of September following the spike in retail prices of the crop to P140 to P160 per kilo.
Despite this, he assured stakeholders that the government would halt shipments of the onion varieties a month before harvest, which would be in February next year.
Government price monitoring data shows that the retail price of local red onions in Metro Manila markets ranges from P120 to P190 per kilo, while imported red onions stand between P100 and P140 per kilo.
The price of imported white onions ranged from P80 to P170 per kilo, based on the latest government price monitoring data.