How far can our ube go?
Beautiful work. We made it famous. Gave it the reputation. Everybody knows it’s Pinoy. Except, 10 years from now, we’re not selling it.
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Beautiful work. We made it famous. Gave it the reputation. Everybody knows it’s Pinoy. Except, 10 years from now, we’re not selling it.
We grew up thinking ube was ours. It just was.
We grew it, cooked it, put it in cakes and ice cream and halaya. Nobody took pictures of it. Or stood in line for it. Nobody called it a trend. Others didn’t even know what ube was.
Then the world tasted it. They liked it. Then they really liked it. Suddenly: ube everywhere. Ube latte. Ube cheesecake. Ube cookies. Ube bread. Fancy restaurants have it. A few Michelin stars, one in Makati serves ube with caviar.
America went crazy for it. Ube on menus is up over 200 percent since 2022. LA held an ube festival. 100,000 people showed up. For ube. New York had one too.
Prices roughly doubled. Very good for us: the world’s biggest ube producer. We sold them ube. We sold all the ube. We ran out of ube to plant.
So government said stop. Fresh ube exports were suspended. Planting pieces? Absolutely not. China saw the boom. Vietnam saw the money. They’d been growing ube for years and now want to grow more.
We made the world fall in love with ube and we’re handing out the seeds? Very smart.
Now we’re fingerprinting ube to protect our Philippine tuber. One-hundred eighty-eight Philippine ube samples. We’re checking the genetics. We want to know which ube is which. Basically, we gave ube a paternity test. We want to meet the parents. Twenty years ago you put this thing in halo-halo.
Twenty years ago, ube asked very little of the Republic. Some soil. Some rain. Condensed milk if the economy was doing well. Now? Congress is looking at making ube a national priority crop.
We have many priorities in this country. Impeachment, flooding, electricity, traffic. Now they want a Philippine Ube Industry Council. We’re going to have ube officials.
Government has lined up P300 million for the industry next year. We’re producing planting material by the thousands.
Because everybody who can grow it is going to grow it. And if they can grow more of it, cheaper than us, congrats. We have successfully created a worldwide market for somebody else’s ube.
Beautiful work. We made it famous. Gave it the reputation. Everybody knows it’s Pinoy. Except, 10 years from now, we’re not selling it. Vietnam is. They grow it. Process it. Put it in a nice little box. Ship it to Manila: “Imported premium ube jam, P890.”
Of course, we’ll buy it. We’ll probably have a government launch. “We welcome the return of ube to its Filipino home.”
This is why there is now a national ube group. United Ube PH. One farmer cannot fight China.
Now that farmer grows it. Someone else turns it into jam or powder or ice cream. Someone else gets it overseas. Scientists figure out how to grow more, even how to make ube grow when ube doesn’t want to grow. Government is supposed to help. When the whole world is buying ube, who gets rich? Maybe us, this time.
Maybe we don’t need to own every ube. Maybe we need the world to know that Philippine ube is special. Like coffee.
Coffee can grow in many countries. People still ask: Where is it from? Colombia? Ethiopia? People pay extra for the answer.
Wine? Even worse. Ask where the grape was grown, somebody gives you the biography of the hill. “South-facing slope, 412 meters above sea level, where the soil...”
Nobody cares. But they pay $200.
Imagine that happening to ube. People who couldn’t pronounce it six years ago now have opinions about terroir. Terroir! For ube! Nobody saw this coming.
A cafe in Manhattan. “Ube latte, please.”
“Sure.”
“Wait. Where’s the ube from?”
“China.”
“Do you have Bohol?”
“$42.”
That’s the dream.
