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The Philippines
This Week in AsiaEconomics

Philippine farmers say China produce smugglers to blame as onion prices soar higher than steak

  • Smugglers have taken advantage of rising food prices and the public’s desperation, with local farmers suffering crop and profit losses
  • Authorities have vowed to investigate a ‘cabal of Chinese nationals and their associates’ who they say control agricultural smuggling

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A woman buys onions at a market in Manila on Wednesday amid soaring prices for the food staple. Photo: AFP
Raissa Robles

It was supposed to be a routine phone call from the leader of a farmers’ cooperative about the sorry plight of Filipino vegetable growers affected by rampant smuggling of produce from China.

But the once-vocal opponent of smuggling on the other end of the telephone line told Ernesto Ordoñez – co-founder of Alyansa Agrikultura, a nationwide coalition comprising 32 federations of farmers and fisherfolk – of being “scared” and giving up the fight after receiving death threats.

“These threats are serious. They might kill,” Ordoñez told This Week in Asia.

Food prices in the Philippines have skyrocketed recently, with onions now selling for 720 pesos (US$13) a kilogram, up from just 60 pesos in April last year, while the same amount of sirloin steak costs 705 pesos. Smugglers have been quick to take advantage of the public’s desperation.

A combination of typhoons, pest infestations, and high fertiliser and fuel costs led to the current onion shortage, which has been exacerbated by traders hoarding supplies and farmers lacking the necessary equipment to preserve last year’s harvest.

The Philippines’ Bureau of Customs recently seized more than 153 million pesos (US$2.8 million) worth of red and white onions smuggled from China that were originally declared to be fish balls.

Congressman Joey Salceda, who heads a committee with oversight of anti-smuggling efforts, earlier said he would investigate the “cabal of Chinese nationals and their associates … this mafia [that] is in control of agricultural smuggling in the country at every stage of the smuggling process, from transport to arrival, to import permits and sanitary inspection.”

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