Philippines: Local Garlic Supply Is in Short Supply

Philippines: local garlic supply is in short supply

In the Philippines, as the onion market slowly recovered from the high price, garlic began to face the potential problem of supply shortage due to the high cost.

The price monitoring of the Ministry of Agriculture (DA) also shows that the retail price of locally grown red and white onions has dropped slightly to 200 pesos to 350 pesos, compared with the historical highest retail price of 700 pesos per kilogram during the festival.

However, people have recently noticed another round of increase in the price of garlic.

In a recent statement, the Ministry of Agriculture said that more and more garlic consumers still prefer to buy imported garlic of about 80 pesos per kilogram rather than locally grown and harvested garlic of about 300 pesos per kilogram.

Garlic shortage

In some markets of Metro Manila, suppliers attributed the increased cost of locally produced garlic to insufficient supply. According to DA, the inventory of local agricultural products on the market "decreased significantly, because the supply of last year was basically exhausted during a series of holidays in December."