The country where onions are more expensive than meat

As in many Latin American countries, garlic and onion are at the heart of Philippine cuisine. The habit of sautéing with both ingredients dates back to the period of colonization by Spain, which lasted between 1521 and 1898 and ended up influencing the country’s cuisine.

For nearly a month, however, onions have become a luxury item for Filipinos. Literally: after a spike in prices, it cost more than beef and chicken.

A kilo of red and white onions reached 600 Philippine pesos this week, approximately R$55. 44); the whole chicken, 220 pesos (R$20).

The value is higher than the daily minimum wage in the Philippines, which is around 500 pesos (R$ 46), varying depending on the sector.

With the rise in prices, the country’s authorities even seized contraband of the vegetable. In one of them, in early January, the equivalent of 17 million pesos (R$ 1.58 million) in bags of onions was intercepted in a shipment from China declared to be clothes.

On social media, Filipinos have been expressing themselves with messages of indignation against the government, which they see as having a share of the blame for the current situation, and with good humor.

“Bye chocolates, hello onions. The onion is becoming one of the best travel souvenirs you can give a Filipino,” said a Filipino, who lives in the United States, in a post on Twitter.

“We are bringing onions instead of chocolates back from the Saudi Arabia trip,” wrote another.

Also on a trip to the United States, another user shared an image of a jar of onion powder: “Since onions became gold in the Philippines, I wanted to buy these here to give as gifts, but I’ve already been to five supermarkets and they’re all out of stock. I asked an attendant and she said, ‘Ah, Filipino tourists have been buying a lot of these’ I wonder why…”

A resident of the city of Manila, capital of the Philippines, senior economist at ING bank Nicholas Mapa says that some restaurants have even stopped selling products that contain onions – the portions of onion rings at hamburgers, for example, have disappeared from some menus.

“They can’t price their products properly or they simply can’t supply onions,” he said in an email interview with BBC News Brasil.

Some, like chef Jam Melchor, founder of the Movement to Preserve the Culinary Heritage of the Philippines, have been looking for replacements. He has resorted to a type of native onion called “lasona”, which tastes different from the traditionally used varieties and is very small, the size of a grape.

“Both restaurants and the general population have suffered from the situation. 600 pesos is an expensive amount, so we are trying to make the most of what we have available among the alternatives,” he told the report.

“Onion is very important to the local cuisine. It goes into almost every dish we prepare here. It’s a crucial ingredient in every Filipino cuisine,” he adds.

Why did onions become so expensive in the Philippines?

Map lists at least two factors that explain the rise in prices.

Projections from the Department of Agriculture released in August indicated that the country would produce less onions than the estimated demand for the end of 2022. The volume was, however, worse than expected: the Philippines was hit by a super typhoon between August and September, further harming crops.

“Unfortunately, imports were made late, only after prices soared – and very close to the harvest period, which is February”, evaluates the economist.

In the first week of January, the government approved the import of around 22 million tons of onions to try to normalize supply and contain prices.

The delay, for experts like Fermin Adriano, who was once an adviser to the Department of Agriculture, was a serious failure of the current administration.

In his evaluation, since the government knew that the product would be lacking in the domestic market, it should, in order to guarantee the food security of the Filipino people, have ordered imports at a sufficient level to at least match the supply with the expected demand.

In a column in The Manila Times, he recalls that Senator Maria Imelda Josefa “Imee” Marcos, sister of the country’s president, Ferdinand Marcos Junior, criticized the report by the Department of Agriculture released in August, stating that malicious people in the folder they wanted to create the false idea that there was a shortage of the product in order to profit from an eventual importation.

Bongbong Management

On social media, many Filipinos see a connection between the disorganized management of the agricultural sector and the fact that the controversial Ferdinand Marcos Junior, known as “Bongbong” and elected president last year, appointed himself Minister of Agriculture, even without experience in the area. .

He is the son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who led a brutal regime in the Philippines in the 1970s and 80s, toppled by widespread popular protests that forced the family to flee the country in 1986.

In 1991, Bongbong returned to the country and embarked on a political career. He was governor, deputy and senator before being elected president. Part of Marcos’ campaign was built trying to sell voters the idea that the dictatorship was a “golden age” – an expression that many have used ironically on social networks, jokingly writing that the “gold” to which the politician referred to was the price of onions.

Third most produced vegetable in the world

Cindy van Rijswick, fruit and vegetable analyst at Rabobank, says that, traditionally, the Philippines is an onion importing country – that is, the volume produced internally is generally not enough to supply the demand.

This need fluctuates a lot: it was 5 million kilograms in 2011, she exemplifies, and an expressive 132 million kilograms in 2016.

“The country usually buys from India, China and even Holland, depending on price and availability”, says the analyst, who is based in Holland, to BBC News Brasil.

One of the reasons is the fact that most of the cultivation in the country, given the physical and climatic conditions, is onion varieties with a short shelf life. This is different from what happens, she adds, in some regions of northern Europe and North America, where, with the right conditions, onions can be stored for up to a year.

The onion’s popularity extends far beyond Latin America, the Iberian Peninsula and the Philippines. The expert claims that the list of countries that use vegetables for cooking is long.

“In most parts of the world, it is among the three most consumed vegetables by the population. That is why onion is also the third most produced vegetable in the world in terms of volume. Only tomatoes and cucumbers have a greater production volume”, he adds.

Onion is also a villain in Brazil

To a lesser extent, onion prices rose in several other countries. Even in Brazil, where it was the item with the highest accumulated increase in 2022: 130.14%, according to the Extended Consumer Price Index (IPCA).

To get an idea of ​​the magnitude, the second place on the list, the yam, became 62% more expensive last year.

Among the reasons for the increase are the reduction in the area planted by farmers and the increase in production costs, since inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides ended up being impacted by the high dollar and the war in Ukraine.

This text was originally published here.