On August 11, 2022, the National Banner Program Committee on High Value Crops-Fruits and Vegetables passed a policy resolution, recommending the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) to include inventory shrinkage rates of onion and garlic in their monitoring reports.

BPI regularly monitors onion and garlic supply in cold and dry storages nationwide. Currently, these include facilities located in the Ilocos Region, Central Luzon, CALABARZON, MIMAROPA, Central Visayas, Northern Mindanao, Davao Region, and National Capital Region.

The suggestion to include the shrinkage rate was in line with the predictive analysis presented by BPI on the extent to which current onion supply will last, based on its August 1 to 5, 2022 data.

BPI refers to the shrinkage rate as the amount or percentage of reduction in the weight of onion from the day it was stored to the date it was withdrawn from the cold and dry storages.

With the assumption of the country’s monthly demand for red onion at 17,100 metric tons (MT), BPI claimed that the 96,732-MT total remaining stocks will last for about five months and 20 days. Meanwhile, the 656 MT of yellow onion was estimated to last for five days, using 3,960 MT as the monthly requirement.

The Committee then raised that the shrinkage of onion supply throughout storage can affect this prediction, thus the recommendation for BPI to include the shrinkage rate in its monitoring reports.

The Committee also agreed that the accurate inventory of stocks can help determine possible incidences of smuggling and/or recycling of import permit or the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Import Clearance.

In the same meeting, the Department of Agriculture-Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Service updated the Committee on the prevailing retail price of onion and garlic in the market.

As of August 5, 2022, retail prices of red onion were reported at PhP140/kilogram (kg), white onion at PhP180/kg, imported white onion at PhP200/kg, native garlic at PhP250/kg, and imported garlic at PhP120/kg. | JCL