Onion farmers presented their plight at a Senate hearing on Monday, with a youth group claiming five farmers committed suicide because of debt.

In a Senate hearing, Young Farmers Challenge Club of the Philippines National President Elvin Jerome Laceda said that five onion farmers in Bayambang, Pangasinan committed suicide.

“And we young farmers want to help our sector. We hope that the FTI (Food Terminal Incorporated) and other agencies of government buy our products at the right price and sell them to consumers,” he told the Senate Committee on Agriculture.

Laceda brought Emily, the wife of an onion farmer who reportedly committed suicide.

According to Lacerda, Emily’s husband became buried in debt because his farm became infested with army worms, and just when they were about to recover, the government had approved the importation of onions.

Emily then told Senators that she and her husband could not earn from planting onions because of pests and heavy rains.

For her part, Senator Imee Marcos said she had received reports onion farmers in Nueva Ecija and Pampanga committed suicide.

“I am fully aware of onion farmer suicides not only in Pangasinan but even in Nueva Ecija and in Pampanga, where the miserable prices of March and April barely paid for the cost of production,” Marcos said.

Marcos said that the lack of onion supply could have been avoided if the minimal importation of onions was done by the Department of Agriculture (DA) in a “timely” and “well-projected” manner.

“The price of onions had taken us on this mad roller coaster ride during the last few months. It is apparent that there is an abject lack of planning (of the DA) therefore,” she said.

Occidental Mindoro Municipal Agriculturist Romel Calingasan also testified to how their onions would be bought at an unreasonable price.

“We spent over P250 per hectare but our efforts last year were wasted…They buy the big red onions from us farmers at P6. Then, in November, they will sell the onions at the market at P500 to P700 per kilo,” Calingasan told the panel.

Calingasan said the Department of Agriculture should have issued permits in September so local onion farmers would not have to compete with the cheaper prices of imported onions.

"They took advantage of us when they added to the price of onions by almost 1,000 percent. And now, when the local farmers are about to harvest, they’ll also start importing,” he said.

Based on the DA's price watch, the local red onion is sold from P350 to P550 per kilogram as of last Friday. Jaspearl Tan/DMS