Since 2022, the Filipino people had to endure runaway price increases of rice, onions, garlic, vegetables, fish and now, even tomatoes, technically a fruit and decorative plant until the Americans started eating them with gusto in the late 1890s. A fruit that grows practically anywhere, tomatoes have become so scarce that the price zoomed to P360 per kilo in Metro Manila markets, making tomatoes more expensive than pork, chicken and even some beef cuts.
Some achievement for “Bagong Pilipinas,” indeed, but an ugly bit of news for those lumpen culturati who attend Palace concerts and fashion shows. However, it is no longer news for the teeming millions who subsist on “pagpag” cuisine and those survive on porridge, morning, noon and night. The “ginintuang kamatis” crisis is the latest proof that the Department of Agriculture (DA), through the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) and its regional units, have not been monitoring the vegetable industry.
For its part, the DA explained the tomato crisis as the result of the 45% cut in production after disastrous typhoons swept through Cagayan Valley, Calabarzon and Bicol. However, tomatoes have also been expensive in Nueva Ecija, a key agricultural producer, as prices ranged from P130 to P180 per kilo. Yet, tomatoes grow easily and can be harvested quickly so much so that cherry tomatoes are now being grown by urban dwellers. Tomatoes are perishable and farmers harvest them before they fully ripen. There is no sense in hoarding tomatoes and other vegetables since they easily rot.
By this time, the team led by Agriculture Secretary Francis “Franco” Laurel Jr. should have known which crops were ruined by typhoons and floods. If they can calculate crop damage, the DA must also have a pretty good idea of the volume of seeds needed to replace them. That is precisely what DA’s quick reaction teams (QRTs) should do—not only estimate crop damage but also bring the seeds, the seedlings and the cuttings to replenish those lost.
While the Local Government Code (LGC) provided the legal structure to grant control over agricultural offices and technicians to local government units (LGUs) as in Vietnam, where these technicians live and work in farming communities, the LGC on its own could not replicate the systems, procedures and prompt actions needed to mitigate the negative impact of disasters. Moreover, not all LGUs share the same commitment to agriculture. Some LGUs would want zoning ordinances to be changed to expand their commercial and residential areas and reduce their farming areas. The argument is basic: They will increase their tax rates and obtain a higher share of their internal revenue allotments (IRAs.)
The entire trouble with shifting the operation of agricultural offices from the DA to the LGUs was that the newly-minted units lost their ties to the DA, the capability was not automatically transferred to the LGUs and the local technicians had to be trained and schooled on the best practices in the trade. This is precisely the point raised by the
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) when it called for a radical rethinking of the government’s food policy, its support for domestic agriculture and genuine rural industrialization. “This golden era of unaffordable rice and food under Marcos Jr continues to burden Filipinos,” KMP chairperson Danilo Ramos argued.
KMP also noted that the DA merely reacts to each crisis and neglects the most crucial element for confronting disasters— the strengthening of local food production. “Amid worsening calamities and climate change, temporary ‘quick response’ measures like loan assistance and seed distribution are no longer enough. What we need are radical reforms in agriculture like rural industrialization.”
KMP believes that the sustainable solution to the food price crisis is to ensure higher production capacity and to establish local agro-processing industries. “Instead of relying on imports during shortages, the government should develop post-harvest processing facilities and cold storage systems for crops like tomatoes. This would prevent farmers from incurring losses during oversupply or price drops. There is no reason for vegetables to cost as much as pork. The reality is, this crisis stems from the government’s chronic neglect of agricultural development,” it concluded.
