DA reserves funding for ube development in proposed 2027 budget

The Department of Agriculture (DA) said Sunday it has earmarked funding under its proposed 2027 budget to support the country’s ube (purple yam) industry amid growing global demand.

The department said it will hold an industry consultation on July 23 to finalize priority programs, funding requirements, and the governance framework for what it hopes will become the country’s next major agricultural export industry.

The DA is pushing an industry-led strategy to strengthen the country’s ube sector and secure a larger share of the global market.

“We want to identify the actual needs of the industry. I don’t want the Department of Agriculture deciding for stakeholders what the industry needs,” Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said in a statement following a recent consultative meeting with growers, processors, exporters, and other stakeholders.

To address bottlenecks in the ube industry, the DA is pushing for the establishment of a national ube federation as one of its priorities to align the goals of producers, processors, and exporters.

The department also aims to fast-track the supply of high-quality planting materials through tissue culture, community nurseries, and the mini-sett propagation technique — a method considered faster than traditional breeding.

Proposed propagation centers will be set up in Quezon, Laguna, Pangasinan, and Aurora, with plans for supplementary processing hubs in Mindanao, the DA said.

Research institutions also presented breakthroughs in crop breeding, including a high-yielding purple ube variety that could significantly boost domestic production.

The DA said it has directed researchers to expedite the evaluation and naming of these new varieties while working with private industry players to determine which cultivars best match market demand.

“The real competition is not among Filipino ube growers but with our ASEAN neighbors,” Tiu Laurel said.

The agriculture chief also directed the industry to establish a standardized color grading system for purple ube using a Lovibond colorimeter.

Other directives include intensifying marketing efforts, securing legal and intellectual property protections for native Philippine ube, and channeling investments into the country’s top-performing cultivation areas, the DA added.—MCG, GMA News