After admitting that the country’s garlic sector is already a “dead-end industry” because of the heavy reliance on importation, a lawmaker on Tuesday, Aug. 30, expressed hope that President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., who is sitting as Department of Agriculture (DA) chief, can still bring it back to life.
Nueva Ecija 3rd district Rep. Rosanna “Ria” Vergara lamented how the local production of garlic has further decreased.
“Dati (Before), Mr. Chair, kapag pumupunta ako sa (when I go to) Manaoag, you can see the local garlic that we can buy. I mean, it’s expensive, but it’s worth the price. Now, wala na (there’s no more). It is a dead-end industry, sorry to say that,” she said before the House Committee on Agriculture and Food.
“We look forward to the President being the Secretary of Agriculture, Ilocos being the prime producer of garlic that we can revitalize and bring back the garlic industry to where it was before,” Vergara added.
The Ilocos region, the Marcos home province, is the largest garlic-producing region in the Philippines. In 2020, reports showed that the region contributed more than 65 percent to the country’s total production.
The House panel on Tuesday, Aug. 30, held a briefing on the production and supply situation of selected prime agricultural commodities in the country, such as pork, chicken, rice, onions, potatoes, and garlic.
Noting that Philippine garlic is “far superior” in terms of “taste, quality, flavor,” Vergara said that high-value crops, such as garlic, “must be fully supported in its local production further increase so we can meet our own local consumption and reverse the downward trend of the locally grown garlic we have been experiencing this the last past five years".
The Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), an agency under the DA, shared during a presentation that the local production of garlic for the first quarter of the year is at 4,771 metric tons (MTs), while some 22,141 MTs were imported.
Quezon 1st district Rep. Wilfrido Mark Enverga, the chair of the House Committee on Agriculture, agreed that the country is “completely insufficient” in local garlic production.
DA Assistant Secretary Kristine Evangelista, who is also serving as agency spokesperson, also admitted to Kabayan Party-list Rep. Ron Salo that the Philippines is “not sufficient at all” when it comes to garlic after the party-list lawmaker confirmed to her that the country is almost completely importing garlic.
“We are dependent on importation, so export, obviously, is not something we are looking into as far as that commodity is concerned,” Evangelista said.
She also highlighted the need to improve the production yield and garlic quality because of the specific requirements of institutional buyers, such as restaurants, hotels, manufacturing companies, and processors.
She agreed with Vergara that the Ilocos region should be strengthened since it is “practically garlic country".
Right now, Evangelista said that the DA cannot buy commodities directly from farmers.
Instead, the agency facilitates the trade between farmers and markets.