Divisoria vegetable and fruit dealers trooped to the Department of Agriculture (DA) on Tuesday to seek help as the market suffers from oversupply of tomatoes; and the Taiwanese continue to dominate the watermelon market.
On the other hand, “ubod” dealers complained of the scarcity of the exotic food item from palms used for spring rolls or “lumpia,” saying they have to source their commodity from Mindoro after their supplies from Quezon, Batangas and Laguna dried up.
“Ngayon, kailangang kunin pa namin sa mga lugar ng New People’s Army (NPA) ang aming paninda (Now, we have to source our product from areas areas where the NPA dominates),” a key dealer said.
The problem has been exacerbated by the ban on the cutting of coconut trees and farmers are said to be lagging behind in planting palms that produce “ubod” like Royal palm, which grows to maturity from four to five years.
One dealer told DA assistant secretary Dante Delima that he has to scrounge for “ubod” since his demand is from 100 to 200 of the product each week and noted that each “ubod” trunk sells from P300 each, selling at the retail market at P40 a kilo. DA officials said there is hope for “ubod” producers if they start planting Royal palm, which can grow fast and serve the demand for “lumpia” and salads as the market goes vegetarian.
An onion retailer, Erlinda Marquez, said that onions from China have not been dumped in the market as yet and said domestic producers can supply what the market needs until December.
Onions can last up to six months in storage.
Tomato dealers also expressed their complaint about the oversupply of the commodity, which is actually the largest selling fruit in the country today. The dealers said tomatoes now fetch P15 a kilo in Divisoria, a level that is not profitable for them.
Market demand in the country’s biggest market is about 35,000 boxes of 25 kilos per week, and the tomatoes just come pouring in, tending to reduce the retail price further.
“This is the first time that we see such a plunge in prices,” a DA official confessed, reducing the problem to the huge output in Lipa City, Batangas. “We can blame Lipa for that, along with the seed companies that have been selling seeds without any concern about overproduction,” she noted.
The dealers asked Delima to help them dispose of the huge volume, to which he retorted that tomatoes can be dehydrated through the efforts of the Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech).
“We have to sell the dehydrated tomatoes,” he added, “but can the dealers sell them?”
Source: Manila Bulletin
