The Department of Agriculture (DA) on Wednesday warned garlic importers that their sanitary and phytosanitary-import clearances (SPS-ICs) will be revoked if they will not bring into country their allocation.
Agriculture Undersecretary for Operations Ariel T. Cayanan said Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol issued the directive after DA officials met with garlic importers to discuss their problems in importing the produce.
“Before, the problem was the slow processing of SPS-ICs. So, I asked them if they have problems with the current process and they said they don’t have any complaints,” Cayanan told reporters on the sidelines of the launching of the DA’s Urban Agriculture program on May 31.
“So the answer of the secretary is that if they will not import until next week, we will cancel the permits issued to them and just allow those who are willing to import,” he added.
Cayanan said the DA will closely monitor the volume of garlic that enters the country this week to determine whether it will revoke SPS-ICs.
“It all boils down to the situation next week. We will observe the situation and if there are already imports in transit and a huge volume of imports is expected, then there’s no need to cancel the permits,” he said.
Cayanan said traders had cited the lack of garlic in major foreign sources, particularly China, where harvest has yet to peak, and the delays in ports of origin, as major factors behind the
low volume of imports.
The Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), an attached agency of the DA, approved 1,143 SPS-ICs covering 57,150 metric tons (MT) of garlic from January to May.
However, as of May 25, only 12,440.34 MT have been brought into the country by private garlic importers, BPI data showed.
Of the 12,440.37 MT imported from January to May this year, 12,206.86 MT were bought from China, according to BPI data. The remaining volume was purchased from India.
“That data is as of last week. I think by next week there would be 20 containers coming in,” Cayanan said.
The Philippines’s local garlic production can only fill up 8 percent of the total demand, with the bulk being augmented by imports, which are sourced mostly from China and India.
Cayanan said the DA could source garlic from Batanes and Ilocos to augment Metro Manila’s supply and cut
retail prices.
“We learned that Batanes has 13 MT of available garlic. In Ilocos, there is an available 19 MT. So the challenge for us is how to bring it to Metro Manila,” he said.
Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the price of native garlic and imported garlic was pegged at P250 per kilogram and P200 per kg, respectively.