Stealing ube
Recently fired-up ube activists are more than willing to fight off the food fraudsters. And they’re going to war by first kicking the butts of moribund bureaucrats.
Biopiracy exists. So does food fraud.
And both modern-day crimes against a country’s agricultural sovereignty are wreaking havoc on the exploding Philippine ube industry, to the alarm of local agriculture officials, exporters, and farmers.
Biopiracy, in fact, is the reason the Marcos government totally banned the export of raw ube.
“We don’t want to export it (raw ube) to countries that could use Philippine ube varieties to compete with us,” Agriculture boss Francisco Tiu Laurel said recently. The ban stays until next year.
Surprisingly, ube farmers and exporters back the ban. In a recent news report, a spokesman for an exporters’ group said, “We’ve had data that (ube) tubers were being (surreptitiously) exported,” while an ube farmer vowed, “(We) are stewards of the ube industry. We have a stake in this. We have to protect it.”
But as ube farmers and exporters say that, they also demand that the government be as unforgiving on biopirates as it is on human traffickers.
But why is there biopiracy (or the unethical or unlawful commercial exploitation of biological materials that are native to a particular country or territory) of our ube that is sending global taste buds bonkers, thus causing a shortage?
Well, it is due to the remarkable fact that Philippine ube is a unique heritage crop whose mildly sweet, nutty flavor, velvety texture and aroma other countries can’t mimic without getting their hands on seedlings and tubers from our country.
Still, even if the country ably contains the biopirates, that won’t stop other competitive countries “from hijacking the premium identity of Philippine ube varieties,” says veteran business journalist Boo Chanco.
Vietnam is one such country. “Vietnam already possesses highly advanced laboratory protocols for the mass propagation of purple yam via tissue culture,” reports Chanco.
And stunningly fierce is the competition that we’re losing out. “As of 2025, the global valuation (for ube) is around $595 million, and our share is only $3 million. We’re not the number one exporter of ube. That’s the sad reality,” says Chester Velaquez, president of the United Ube PH Federation.
Nonetheless, Vietnam’s ube simply can’t compare with the iconic Philippine tuber, like, for instance, Bohol’s “ube kinampay” and its distinct aroma and vibrant violet flesh that only the island’s limestone soil, climate, and traditional farming methods can produce.
Sadly, however, uniqueness doesn’t guarantee anything. Velasquez says there are now shady attempts to cash in on Philippine varieties through what he terms as “food fraud,” where ube grown in other countries is marketed globally as a product of the Philippines.
Fortunately, recently fired-up ube activists are more than willing to fight off the food fraudsters. And they’re going to war by first kicking the butts of moribund bureaucrats, demanding that they quickly secure a Geographical Indication (GI) registry for Philippine ube.
GI registry is a sort of intellectual property certification for ube. Securing it involves laborious science-based processes, like genetically fingerprinting an ube variety, which should have been done yesterday.
Anyway, once Philippine ube gains GI registry protection here and internationally, it becomes illegal and expensive for any other country to market our ube under false pretenses.
The GI registry is not new, either. The acclaimed Guimaras mango is protected by a GI registration, with mangoes officially appended with the “Guimaras Mango” label.
The Bohol provincial government is starting the work on ube, recently filing for an official GI registry tag for “ube kinampay.”