Miagao’s Onion Farmers Expecting Bountiful Harvest

WHO DOESN’T LOVE ONIONS? Thanks to a soon-to-be-bountiful harvest this year, there will be no shortage of this precious crop in the town of Miagao in Iloilo according to the Office of the Municipal Agriculturist.

Miagao’s bulb onion coordinator, April Joy Depamaylo, said that the farmers have already started harvesting the crops last week.

“The Office of the Municipal Agriculturist projected a harvest of 520 metric tons for all the PLEA (Production Loan Easy Access) program beneficiaries with an area of 80.0 hectares and average yield of 6.5 metric tons per hectare,” she said.

Most of the farmers have established their farm area for bulb onion production on January 2018, which took 90 days to mature. As of the 22nd of March this year, the farm gate price ranges from P45 to P50 per kilo.

“This is very profitable to all farmers particularly those who harvested early this month with an average yield of 10 metric tons per hectare,” Depamaylo said.

The local government of Miagao and the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Office-6 Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Division collaborated to facilitate an Investment Opportunity Seminar cum Market Matching.

The focus of the seminar was to help the onion farmers understand the market potential and demand of their crops in raw and processed forms. It also gave the farmers, producers, and processors a chance to establish and develop marketing linkages. Finally, the activity served as a venue for market matching and encouraged all parties involved to market their own products.

45 bulb onion farmers from Miagao and garlic farmers from Igbaras participated in the seminar. Buyers who presented their business proposals to the farmers were also in attendance. The representatives from Iloilo were Supermart, Ephrathah Farms, and 3 Tops Trading.

via Philippine Information Agency / Leonard T. Pineda