PRICE OF ONION IN PANGASINAN TOWN STILL ‘GOOD’

BAYAMBANG, Pangasinan: Farm gate prices of locally produced onions here remained good, said the town’s agriculture official Tuesday, February 6.

“As of now, farm gate prices of onions here range from P45 to P48 per kilogram (kg),” said Albert Maiquez, town assistant agriculturist, in a telephone interview.

This town, which has about 2,000 hectares of onion farms in 68 of its 77 villages, is Ilocos Region’s top onion producer.

“I have not been updated yet on the current market price of onions,” Maiquez said.

But according to the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Bantay Presyo website, the retail price of onion in Metro Manila markets as of Feb. 5, 2024 is P80 to P160 per kilogram.

Despite the good farm gate price, Maiquez said some of the town’s onion farmers incurred losses due to the infestation of armyworms and leaf twister disease.

“There were reported damages but it was not that extensive,” Maiquez said.

He said the armyworms attack was only confined to the onion-producing villages of the town’s second district, which include the villages of Bongato East, Bongato West, Iton, Manambong Sur, Manambong Norte, Manambong Parte, Pantol, Paragos, and San Gabriel 2nd.

Armyworms are destructive pests that got their names from their army-like movement in agricultural fields, according to the DA website.

The worms usually consume turf grass but would eat any vegetation in their path. They can be controlled using neem oil-based sprays or with biological controls like earwigs, spiders, and predatory wasps.

On the other hand, twister disease, which is considered to be the most destructive disease of onions in the country, is caused by the fungus Fusarium fujikuroi.

The disease is characterized by severe twisting of leaves and neck elongation as well as necrosis of leaves.

Maiquez said that the local government had been helping affected onion farmers in processing their claims from the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp.

He said his office also distributed farm inputs such as free onion seeds and fertilizers, to the onion farmers.

In the past years, armyworms ravaged hundreds of hectares of onion farms in this town and in the neighboring towns of Malasiqui, Bautista and Alcala, incurring millions of pesos of losses to the farmers.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, Ilocos Region produced 12,540 metric tons of onions in 2022, almost half of the 23,660 MT produced by Central Luzon that year.

The Mimaropa region was the top producer of onions during the period with a production of 46,940 MT. Mimaropa stands for Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan.