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Sam Beltran

Esmeraldo Maligsa, a farmer and president of the Bohol Ubi Growers Association, harvests 2,000kg (4,400lbs) of ube, the purple tuber native to the Philippines, every seven months.
He and the other farmers in his group manage a collective yield of between five and eight tonnes, fetching prices of 90 pesos to 100 pesos (US$1.50 to US$1.60) per kilogram.
Such is the going price for ubi kinampay, dubbed the “Queen of Philippine yams”. Grown in Bohol province and nearby areas in central Philippines, the variety is prized for its nutty, vanilla-like flavour and distinctive aroma.
But supply is struggling to keep pace with surging demand, a shortfall felt even back home. “Our yield … is not enough,” Maligsa said. “People call us and ask for two tonnes per month. How can we supply that?”
The rest of the world has now caught up with the craze, with ube showing up on the menus of bakeries, cafes, and restaurants globally.

In the United States alone, ube menu items grew by more than 200 per cent between 2022 and the present, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported. Even coffee chain Starbucks has introduced a line of ube-flavoured drinks across its US and European stores.
Philippine ube exports exceeded US$3 million in 2025, according to the Department of Trade and Industry – more than double the US$1.4 million recorded by the Philippine Statistics Authority in 2024. Key export markets include Canada, the Middle East and other parts of Asia, with demand also increasing in the US, South Korea and Europe.
The country faces steep competition from its neighbours, however, with Vietnam and China rapidly scaling up production.
Local farmers must also contend with manual methods and the lack of processing facilities. “We want to have machinery, like a small backhoe,” Maligsa said. “The land we plant on is hilly. The Bohol government gave us a garden cultivator, but it can’t go up the hilly terrain … we dig the land by hand, which takes time.”


On Saturday, the Philippines’ Department of Agriculture announced plans to institutionalise the ube industry, including standardisation and the creation of export-ready systems.
“Demand is booming, but supply and structure are struggling to keep up,” Agriculture Undersecretary Philip Young said. “Ube is no longer just a pantry staple or dessert flavour but an export product that needs rules, scale and a proper growth playbook.”
The department has set aside 2.6 million pesos to expand ube production in key areas, while the US Department of Agriculture has also allocated US$34 million to strengthen the ube value chain, including product processing.
Maligsa said that the Philippine government had recently provided his group with a harvesting facility to process yams into powder, prolonging their shelf life and raising the price to 1,800 pesos per kilogram.
Bohol bid
Bohol this month applied for a geographical indication (GI) registration for its produce, which would “formally recognise the qualities, reputation and cultural heritage of the Bohol ubi kinampay that are inherently linked to the province’s geography, soil, climate and traditional farming practices”, according to the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines.
The designation would aim to protect the crop from unauthorised use of its name, false claims and undercutting of its origin-linked value.
“The world is now in the middle of a ‘purple gold rush’, and GI protection can help the Philippines stake its claim in the growing global demand by strengthening its market identity and position,” the agency said.
Liza Quirog, director of the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist in Bohol, said the province believed that the GI registration could stop the term ubi kinampay from being used to refer to anything other than its native variety.
“Seeing other people referring to another kind of ubi and calling it kinampay is quite offensive,” she said. “This protection benefits the plant and people ... with proper use of names of ubi varieties, growers can benefit from the actual value of their products, leading to better income and thus a potential for the development of more progressive rural communities and better quality of life for Boholanos.”
Maligsa welcomed the GI application. “A lot of people are now imitating our ube but they cannot replicate the aroma, which is what makes the ubi kinampay more valuable,” he said.
“We are not threatened by Vietnam and China. Our ube has an aroma that theirs doesn’t have because of the land it is planted on. Many have tried, but they cannot replicate it.”

However, more needs to be done to stamp Bohol’s ownership on the kinampay variety as it is already being cultivated elsewhere, according to Marlon Tambis, director of the Philippine Root Crop Research and Training Centre at Visayas State University.
Tambis said ube was culturally significant for Bohol province, but until recently people had not “really cared much about economic viability” – though that attitude was now changing as export demand turned ube into “a high-value crop”.
Returns can be high despite high initial production costs. “A farmer can potentially get more than 3kg per plant using the right variety, care and fertilisation. A hectare [2.5 acres] can potentially have 20,000 plants in a highly intensive system,” he said.
Still, ube’s seasonal nature, shaped by a dormant period and sensitivity to environmental and climatic conditions, complicates year-round supply.

Tambis’ team is developing techniques to enable continuous harvests and studying varieties suited to broader planting windows, given that ubi kinampay is highly sensitive to soil diseases, physical trauma or bruising and changes in its environment.
“Kinampay is susceptible to fungus and has a relatively lower yield, so relying only on kinampay will not help much to address the shortage problem, even if it has certain characteristics preferred by consumers,” Tambis said.
“For Bohol to join the global ube value chain, they need to consider not just the kinampay variety, especially since they also need an expanded planting window to really supply more and to have a competitive price for their produce.”
Quirog said the agricultural office had taken steps to consolidate the farmers into separate clusters into a registered federation and provide each cluster with processing facilities, while developing an innovation centre for its products.
“Boholanos are not threatened by any country producing more than we could,” she said.
“Different countries might have their own version of the purple variety but only Bohol grows kinampay, which has dense fleshy texture and sweet earthy fragrance … there is practically no competition for these distinct characteristics.”


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Philippine ube exports reached over US$3 million in 2025, more than double the US$1.4 million figure recorded in 2024


Philippine ube exports reached over US$3 million in 2025, more than double the US$1.4 million figure recorded in 2024.


How Philippine ube farming can cash in on ‘purple gold rush’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Philippine ube exports reached over US$3 million in 2025, more than double the US$1.4 million figure recorded in 2024

Philippine ube exports reached over US$3 million in 2025, more than double the US$1.4 million figure recorded in 2024