DA confirms camote supply started to go down in July

There's a shortfall in the supply of sweet potatoes or camote, an official of the Department of Agriculture has said.

According to Joseph Morong’s report on “24 Oras”, the DA said the supply of sweet potatoes started to decline last month.

“Hindi masyadong lalaki ang kamote kapag tag-ulan. Sa ngayon, tag-ulan... talagang kulang,” DA Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban said.

(Sweet potatoes do not grow that much during the rainy season. We’re still in the rainy season so the supplies are not enough.)

“Medyo kakaunti ngayon pero pagdating na ng October, November, December, hindi na apektado ‘yan dahil lalaki na. At least, mumura na ‘yan,” he added.

(It may be low in supply right now but in October, November, and December, it will not be affected because we expect to increase. By then, the prices will be reduced, at least.)

According to Panganiban, sweet potatoes come from Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog, and Northern Luzon — which was recently hit by Severe Tropical Storm Florita.

He said he already instructed the Bureau of Plant Industry to collect data on how much the supplies waned for this year.

Data sourced by the GMA News Research team from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed the production of sweet potatoes in the country rose by 278,330 metric tons from January to June 2022 compared to the 273, 090 MT in the same period last year.

However, figures from 2020 and 2021 both showed there was a decline in the supplies of agricultural products by July to September.

Prices of sweet potatoes are affected by the reduced production, the report said. In the Balintawak market, a kilo now costs P45— around P20 higher from the previous P25 to P35 per kilo. —Sundy Locus/NB, GMA News