Senator Imee Marcos has urged the Filipino government to conduct a comprehensive inventory of local white onions to check the extent of a shortage caused by last summer’s lean harvest. Marcos said doing so would also help the government determine if there are traders who are hoarding white onions.
“Trace the traders who bought white onions from local farmers and find out if they are hoarding the crop in cold storage,” Marcos said in a statement. “Without a comprehensive inventory, we cannot arrive at a well-calibrated importation policy that answers consumer demand but also relieves our local growers from low farmgate prices.”
The Department of Agriculture (DA), last Wednesday, confirmed there is a lack of supply of white onions in the market. According to the DA, they have started listing the names of traders gathered from farmers in major onion-growing provinces like Nueva Ecija and Mindoro.
Source: mb.com.ph