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Will Bt corn replace onion in Nueva Ecija, The Philippines
Bongabon, Nueva Ecija
September 1, 2004

Carlos D. Marquez, Jr., Philippines Today via Seameo Searca

Resty G., a 37-year-old seasonal farm worker in this onion hub, limped toward the plastic mat spread on the ground where the sorted onion rejects were placed to dry, taking advantage of the sun that finally shone after three days of continued rain. The market-reject onions are his share from the recent harvest. 

His mood was affected by the saddening state of onion growing not only in this town, 78 percent of whose people (population 86,619) depend on the 28,700 hectares of onion-dominated farms. Bongabon farmers are feeling the weakening pulse of the contry's onion industry. 

Resty's financier, Antonio Santiago, a rural bank manager, said a wide part of Bongabon's onion plantation is now being eyed for Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) corn production. 

"That is after the losses we experienced, and the dive in the market price, since imported and smuggled onions have dominated the local market," Santiago sighed. 

The Nueva Ecija-based Union of Growers and Traders of Onion in the Philippines (UGAT) said unchecked smuggling that has been compounding the problem brought by importation is sealing the death of the country's onion industry. 

About half of the country's red creole onion harvest of around 201 million kilos this year are still in cold storages in Nueva Ecija and Bulacan, besides the still unsold stocks in Pampanga and Metro Manila. 

It was found out that the 120 (40-ft) container vans authorized by the Bureau of Plant Industry to bring into the country yellow granex, or white onion, from China were found upon their arrival mixed -- almost half of it, it was said -- with red creole variety. 

Besides this, 18 more container vans with the same red creole onions were made to slip through the Bureau of Customs, said UGAT chairman Erlinda Abad. 

Lucena Ceña, UGAT director, said the death of the local onion industry, foretold since the Philippine Senate ratified the General Agreement for Tariffs and Trade in 1995, will result in the economic displacement of thousands of onion farm laborers. 

There are 13,400 hectares of farmland devoted to red creole farming, and 2,200 hectares for yellow granex, in Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, Nueva Vizcaya, Ilocos and the Visayas and Mindanao. Each hectare is the lifeblood of about 120 seasonal farm workers, Ceña said. 

Following the production flow in a hectare of an onion farm, the laborers needed include: eight men in land preparation to work in six weeks, 30 planters and 30 weeders for three weeks each, two men each in fertilizer and pesticide spraying, which should cover four months, and about 35 harvesters. 

At the postharvest stage, about 24 laborers are also needed in hauling, weighing and shipping of the product from the farm to the cold storage plant. These workers, like Resty, earns half of the net income after the inputs and other expenses shouldered by the farm owner had been deducted. 

Of the per-hectare average harvest of 400 bags of onions at 28 kilos each, a producer could get P235,200 at the storage cost of P21 a kilo. He will deduct the average per hectare production cost of P85,000 and he will have P150,000. Half of this, or P75,000 goes to the laborer, based on the existing practice in Nueva Ecija, after five months of work in the farm. 

"This is what those smugglers are taking away from the poor onion planters," Ceña said. 

As for Resty, like the other flexible Novo Ecijanos, he will just go where his financier is planning to turn to with the waning onion production. 

"We will just try planting Bt corn," he said lamely. 

They have no prepared production plan yet for Bt corn to compare with the ailing onion industry. 

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