By Angela Arnante

Aeta farmers in Porac, Pampanga once received as little as P15 to P20 per kilo for their ube — purple yam — because they had few market options and weak bargaining power. According to Agriculture Magazine, improved market access later lifted farmgate prices for standard varieties to roughly P80 to P100 per kilo, while premium Kinampay fetched as much as P250. The pattern extends beyond the farm gate: ube gains value at every step through processing and export channels. The underlying economics is straightforward — when more buyers compete for the same harvest, farmers gain leverage to negotiate better prices. Access to buyers matters.

That is precisely why the government's decision to indefinitely suspend exports of fresh ube warrants closer scrutiny. The policy may be intended to secure planting materials and build domestic production, but it also removes an entire category of buyer from the market. For farming communities from Pampanga to Leyte and Bohol, the answer will shape planting decisions for cropping seasons to come. Are farmers, processors, and the wider value chain genuinely better off under the restriction?

The Strongest Case for the Ban

There is a legitimate rationale behind the policy. In Pampanga, farmers themselves reported that as demand surged, many sold so much of their harvest that too little planting material remained for the next cropping season. Preserving planting-capable tubers today may indeed help protect future production.

Yet that still does not explain why all fresh ube exports — including shipments intended for consumption — must be suspended indefinitely, rather than imposing a narrower, time-bound restriction targeting actual propagation stock.

The Department of Agriculture (DA), through the Bureau of Plant Industry, has already distributed more than 60,000 planting materials to 900 farmers in Leyte and Bohol, while DA Region II has sought an additional 80,000 kilograms for Quirino. Research supported by the Department of Science and Technology also shows that improved propagation can multiply supply far faster: traditional methods yield only about seven to 10 planting materials per kilogram, while enhanced minisett technology — a method that cuts ube tubers into smaller planting pieces so a single tuber produces many more new plants — can generate roughly 40 to 50, with tissue culture offering even greater scale.

These are the interventions that address the bottleneck directly. If planting materials are scarce, multiply them. If production is low, raise productivity. Restricting demand does not produce a single additional tuber.

Buyers Matter

Supporters of the restriction argue that the Philippines should process ube domestically, create jobs at home, build local brands, and capture more value within the country. That is a legitimate goal — but higher domestic value-added does not automatically translate into higher farmer income.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority show that average ube farmgate prices — the amount farmers receive at the farm gate, before processing and retail markups — fell from P45.24 per kilo in 2024 to P40.70 in 2025, even as retail prices rose. A processor may turn a cheap tuber into a high-value product, but nothing guarantees that the additional margin flows back to the farmer.

This is why buyers matter. Farmers may not export directly, but exporters, cooperatives, consolidators, and firms supplying foreign customers all represent competing demand for their harvest. Farmers are not protected by having fewer buyers.

Existing contracts pose a further problem. Exporters and processors may already hold purchase orders or face foreign buyers expecting Philippine ube. An indefinite suspension creates uncertainty over who bears the losses if those commitments cannot be honored, and buyers may simply shift to other suppliers. Even if the ban is later lifted, commercial relationships may already be damaged. Policy uncertainty is itself a cost: firms unable to predict whether exports will remain open may invest less, sign fewer contracts, or look elsewhere.

Are Processors Even Clear Winners?

At first, the ban may help processors by keeping more ube at home and reducing competition from foreign buyers. But that advantage may prove temporary.

If fewer buyers push farmgate prices down, farmers may plant less or shift to other crops. If farmers earn less, they have less reason to produce more. If they produce less, processors eventually have less to process. And if demand stays strong while supply shrinks, prices can rise again.

The opposite problem emerges if the government props up farmer prices: processors then face higher input costs and may struggle to compete with manufacturers abroad.

Processors, in short, can end up with cheaper ube today but tighter supply tomorrow — or with higher input costs that erode their competitiveness. A strong processing industry ultimately depends on a strong farming sector beneath it.

A Renewable Crop, A Mobile Market

The peso's weakness also raises the opportunity cost of restricting exports. A weaker currency is not an automatic windfall — imported inputs may become more expensive — but dollar earnings translate into more pesos. At a time of strong overseas demand, access to foreign markets can be especially valuable to exporters and rural enterprises.

Ube is also a renewable agricultural crop. It can be propagated, replanted, and expanded through better farming and propagation technologies. It is not a fixed resource whose stock is permanently depleted once sold. Purple yam is grown in other countries as well, so restricting Philippine exports does not prevent foreign competition from emerging. The stronger long-term advantage lies in productivity, varieties, quality, branding, and processing.

Foreign buyers, moreover, do not have to wait for the Philippines. If Philippine supply becomes difficult or unreliable, buyers can build relationships with producers in other countries. Demand does not disappear because we refuse to sell — it moves.

A Mercantilist Instinct

There is something distinctly mercantilist about the idea that valuable materials should remain at home so foreigners cannot use them to compete with us. Adam Smith would question the assumption that wealth is protected by restricting trade; David Ricardo would point to the gains from serving markets where our products are highly valued; Friedrich Hayek would see strong foreign demand as a signal to expand supply. Even Karl Marx would raise a different but equally important question: who captures the value? If farmers lose competing buyers while processors gain access to cheaper raw material, industrial policy may simply redistribute income from producers to more powerful actors downstream.

This is an old mercantilist instinct — protect national wealth by restricting trade and keeping valuable goods at home. It made sense to colonial powers that viewed commerce as a zero-sum contest. It makes far less sense for a modern economy trying to build a global ube industry. If Philippine ube is to become the version the world specifically wants, the goal should not be to keep our ube away from the world, but to ensure that Filipino farmers, workers, processors, and brands capture more of the value as global demand grows.

Where Is the Exit Strategy?

If the government believes a restriction is genuinely necessary, it should come with measurable conditions for ending it. How many planting materials must be produced? What production level must be reached? How quickly can nurseries and tissue-culture facilities scale? Without those answers, an interim restriction can acquire a bureaucratic life of its own. Concrete markers to watch for include published planting-material targets, review timelines, and permit guidelines for consumption-bound shipments — the signals that would distinguish a temporary measure from a permanent one.

Once exports become restricted, someone must design the permits, certifications, exemptions, and approvals required to reopen them. Even without corruption, every additional administrative gate creates cost, delay, and discretion. A ban without an exit strategy is not an industrial policy — it is a restriction waiting to become bureaucracy.

The broader question goes beyond ube. Philippine agriculture already struggles with low productivity, fragmented value chains, weak logistics, and limited farmer bargaining power. Is a mercantilist instinct that responds to scarcity by restricting trade really suited to solving those problems?

The government is already investing in propagation, nurseries, tissue culture, farmer organization, and better production systems. Those efforts should be accelerated alongside better financing, logistics, storage, standards, and market access. These measures strengthen the supply base without removing buyers from the market.

The real question is why an indefinite export ban is necessary when other ways exist to secure planting materials and expand production. If scarcity is the problem, produce more, strengthen the supply base, and let domestic processors and foreign buyers compete for a growing volume of Philippine ube. Government intervention may be necessary in some areas, but restricting trade should not be the default response to a production constraint.

We can keep the ube at home. But if the buyers, investment, and market move elsewhere, what exactly have we protected?

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Angela Arnante is the assistant director of Policy and External Relations at the Foundation for Economic Freedom and an Asia Freedom fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Contact: angela.arnante@gmail.com

Source: BusinessWorld