Last December 4, 2020, the I-PLAN Component of the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) held the first Occidental Mindoro Onion Investment Forum via teleconference hosted by the PRDP’s South Luzon Project Support Office and MIMAROPA Regional Project Coordination Office. 

The event was able to gather around 80 participants all over the country, from various government agencies, local government units, state universities and colleges, cooperatives, and farmers associations. It was conducted in collaboration with the Provincial Government of Occidental Mindoro, High Value Crops Development Program (HVCDP), and Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Division (AMAD).

Anchored on the Onion Commodity Roadmap 2017-2022, one of its objectives is to expand the existing agricultural areas planted with the onion crop to increase the volume of production of onion and meet both national and export market demands. 

During the forum, existing investment and other investment opportunities for onion were presented especially in Occidental Mindoro where it is considered a top commodity. The DA MIMAROPA HVCDP in addition provided an overview on potentials and challenges in the input supply and production segment of onion as well as the government-funded interventions already delivered in support of the industry. The DA MIMAROPA AMAD supported the discussion by providing the regional perspective on the consolidation and marketing segment of onion.

“With respect to post-harvest facilities and logistics, we have no farmer cooperative that owns or operates a cold storage. We have one that is privately owned, with the capacity to cater only 15 percent of the total provincial production. There is no storage space for the remaining 85 percent so we really need investments in this aspect,” explained DA MIMAROPA AMAD Chief Dr. Celso Olido.

Throughout the forum, there were other speakers from the private sector who provided discussions on onion business models and from the government sector who talked through about support services – on post-harvest, credit, national standards, and crop insurance – for onion industry development.

“The onion industry of country is a very big industry. We are grappling with the competitiveness of imported onions and our production activities were not able to maximize the benefits coming from it. We have problems that we need to overcome so we can operate at par with the imported onion. This is one of the reasons why we launched this activity,” said DA-MIMAROPA Regional Executive Director Antonio Gerundio.

Given the challenges – the pandemic and climate change among others – that the agriculture sector is facing today, the government through the DA and PRDP are welcoming business proposals for investments and other opportunities that will support our local industry especially for the onion commodity and farmers. ### (Leira Vic Colongon, DA-PRDP MIMAROPA RPCO InfoACE Unit

The MIMAROPA region is included in largest procurers of onion in the country, ranking fourth in the first quarter of 2020, with 2.15 thousand metric tons share in the 135.94 thousand metric tons of national volume of production. (Photo by Denice Joelle Benosa, DA-PRDP MIMAROPA RPCO InfoACE Unit)