By Manny Piñol
Oton, Iloilo – There is an Onion-planting frenzy in this town and at least three other towns of Iloilo Province as the Department of Agriculture (DA) through the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) extended production loans amounting to P82-million.
Planted areas in the towns of increased from 47 hectares in 2017 to 202 hectares this year, according to DA Region VI Director Remelyn Recoter.
On Friday, during a forum with the Oton Bulb Onion Growers Association (OBOGA), the farmers committed to increase their planted area in the town to 100 hectares.
Director Recoter said for the whole province of Iloilo, the target expansion area is 1,000 hectares with an average production of 10-metric tons per hectare.
Under the Production Loan Easy Access (PLEA) Program of the DA-ACPC, onion and garlic farmers are granted a P150,000 loan per hectare at 6% per year or .5% per month.
This loaning program is available to all onion and garlic farmers all over the country.
The program is expected to fill up the national requirements for Onion by the end of the term of President Rody Duterte.
In Oton yesterday, I committed another P10-M in PLEA loan funds for onion farmers.
Currently, the Philippines produces about 140,000 metric tons of bulb onion with Central Luzon contributing 57 percent; Ilocos region, 31 percent; Mimaropa, 8 percent; Cagayan Valley, 5 percent, and other regions, 1 percent.
The total area planted to bulb onion all over the country is estimated at 16,000 hectares.
In Central Luzon, the biggest onion producer is Nueva Ecija with 74,000 MT or 99.99 percent of the region’s total output.
With a per capita consumption of onions in the Philippines placed at 2 kilos, the estimated onion requirements every year is at 206,000 metric tons.
The emergence of Iloilo Province as another potential major producer of bulb onions will rapid increase the production of this controversial commodity which has been the subject of many Senate investigations because of the involvement of cartels and smuggling syndicates.
(Photos taken by Alarico Nuestro, DA-AFID)
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