Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 16) — A group of young farmers on Tuesday laid out possible solutions that will help the onion industry amid the issues it is facing.
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Speaking to CNN Philippines’ The Source, Elvin Laceda, national president of the Young Farmers Challenge Club of the Philippines Inc. (YFCI), said the Department of Agriculture (DA) should have a market-driven production using data management system.
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“We need to create a system that will enable us to know what the market needs three to six months ahead of time,” he said. “We need innovation in creating data management system in Department of Agriculture so that hindi guesswork lang… dapat data driven (so that we don’t guesswork, it should be data driven).”
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YFCI, formed through a competitive financial grant assistance program of the DA, serves as a community platform, policy advocacy center, and knowledge hub to promote the welfare and build the capacity of Filipino young farmers.
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Laceda maintained that they are not seeing onion shortage in the country. It’s just that supply is in cold storages that are controlled by traders and hoarders.
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Aside from this data system, he said the government should ensure existing laws are implemented.
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Onion farmers should also be given access to credit with low interest, since this is currently limited to other industries, he added.
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Laceda is also pushing for the creation of a law that will give more power to farmers for them to be heard on critical matters being tackled by the government, like importation.
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