A Senate probe has been sought into the alleged collapse in onion prices in Nueva Ecija and Occidental Mindoro, plummeting from P120 to 150 per kilo in January to merely P30 to 40 in February.

Senate Resolution 344, filed by Senator Loren Legarda on Wednesday, directs the concerned Senate panel to look into whether the Department of Agriculture (DA) strictly adheres to import calibration and cold storage guidelines, consistent with its commitment to halt all onion importations by January to protect local producers from income losses.

“[R]eports indicate a systemic failure in import calibration, where the arrival of approximately 4,000 metric tons of approved buffer imports coincided with the peak local harvest in the Philippines, creating an artificial glut that suppressed local prices,” the resolution reads.

Legarda lamented that the plunge in onion prices, which fell close to the average production cost of P17 to P35 per kilo, put farmers in a “dire economic crisis.” In contrast, retail prices in Metro Manila remained disproportionately high.

Farmgate prices of onions are expected to drop further from this month through April, driven by a peak harvest that has resulted in a surge in supply. This will be aggravated by the lack of cold storage facilities.

The resolution also calls for an investigation into the so-called “prior booking” system fraudulently engineered by private facilities. This scheme denies farmers the ability to store their produce during the peak season. As a result, they will be forced to sell their produce at lower prices, leaving them with little to no income.

The crisis was exacerbated by reports of illegal onion imports from China discovered in Bulacan, which created a “shadow supply.”

These illicit stocks, Legarda warned, artificially inflated market volume, suppressed farm-gate prices, and highlighted lapses in border control and regulatory enforcement.

“Why allow importation at the height of harvest? The result is farm gate prices collapsing while market prices remain high. Traders profit, but farmers are left behind,” Legarda stressed.

Aside from the steep decline in farm gate prices and the saturation of 82 percent of cold storage capacity, the resolution also cited the overlap of 4,000 metric tons of imports with the peak harvest season.

Despite DA’s earlier commitment to halt imports by January, data from the Bureau of Plant Industry showed Sanitary and Phytosanitary Import Clearances remained valid until 15 February.

The resolution also calls for imposing an immediate import ban every December to prevent predatory pricing, auditing the value chain to trace profit margins of cold storage operators and wholesalers, reviewing storage capacity in Nueva Ecija and Occidental Mindoro, and assessing other onion-producing areas nationwide for similar irregularities.

“If we do not dismantle the monopoly over cold storage and import permits, this crisis will repeat every year. Government must buy directly from farmers and build farmer-managed storage facilities so they can compete fairly,” Legarda said.

The Food and Terminal Inc. has begun buying local onions in Nueva Ecija since earlier this week to prevent onion farmgate prices from free falling. The same intervention will be also observed in Occidental Mindoro.