Global purple craze brightens hopes for Philippine ube farmers

SPECIAL REPORT

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PORAC, Pampanga, Philippines — The soles of 54-year-old Aloy Cosme are cracked and parched, like land ravaged by a decade-long El Niño. But it was not extreme weather that hardened them. It was 40 years of toiling in ube fields across their ancestral land here on the mountainside of the province.

Calluses form when skin is repeatedly exposed to friction and pressure. Over time, the layers harden to withstand heat, irritation and constant rubbing. It is the body’s way of protecting itself from the strain of strenuous and repetitive manual labor – most often borne by the hands and feet.

“Protection ko na itong mga kalyo ko sa init at saka sa lupa,” says Cosme, a third-generation Aeta farmer.

“Kahit bubog hindi na mararamdaman niyan,” adds Cosme, barefoot, as he leans forward nearly 180 degrees and plants a chopped crown of ube some 700 meters above sea level.

Today, this tuber with a deep purple color, scientifically known as Dioscorea alata, is taking the world by storm, thanks to social media buzz, growing health trends and rising demand for novel food products.

For ube farmers like Cosme, this means one thing: a chance for better pay, leading to a brighter future for his family that has been rooted in planting ube all these years.

Harnessing international market

Cosme learned about the world’s craze over ube from Christopher Gomez, the head of a non-government organization that has been helping Aeta farmers market their organic ube to get better prices and profit.

Gomez showed Cosme a TikTok video about foreigners going gaga over ube ice cream and drinks. Cosme grinned after watching some reels.

Ube is enjoying a global spotlight as the world demands more of its sweet taste profile and regal color. And the Philippines is benefiting much from it.

Last year, the country’s export of ube and ube-based products rose by a fifth to $3.25 million from $2.7 million in 2024, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed. Total volume shipped out by the country rose by 24 percent year-on-year to nearly 1.7 million kilos.

Official figures indicate that the overall export growth was buoyed by higher shipments of frozen purple yam. The volume of frozen ube or purple yam exports more than doubled last year to 937,808 kilos, bringing in almost $1.8 million in revenue for the country.

“The demand is so big that the world wants a piece of Philippine ube,” Agriculture Undersecretary Cheryl Marie Natividad-Caballero told The STAR.

“Cultures across the globe see purple as the color of royalty. And ube has that intense purple color,” Caballero added.

That demand is growing worldwide – from the US, the United Kingdom to Europe and even in Asia. In the country, the global craze is echoing across farms nationwide.

The prices received by ube farmers have tripled to P60 per kilo from just P20 per kilo, Caballero said.

“Traders are now pole vaulting. They are selling to the highest bidder,” Caballero added.

Cracks along the way

The average retail price for ube last year rose by nine percent on an annual basis to a record-high of P80 per kilo, PSA data show. This is the first time on record that the average retail price breached P80 per kilo.

But farmgate prices of the crop indicate a different story. The average price received by ube farmers last year fell to P40.7 per kilo from P45.24 per kilo in 2024, based on PSA data.

Analysts say the disconnect between the uptick in ube retail prices and farmgate prices results from the commodity’s fragmented value chain. And one of the critical bottlenecks is that farmers are unable to maximize the benefits from the global boom because they remain disconnected from other parts of the value chain.

Like other commodities, ube farmers sell most of their produce to traders who have the logistical capacities to store, market and trade the produce in bulk, giving the latter better bargaining power.

The traders then sell their consolidated produce to ube processors who turn the tuber into the “royal” products - from jams to ice creams - that consumers demand.

“We know that farmers are resource-constrained and not well-integrated into the value chain, so they do not fully realize their potential gains from both domestic and international markets,” said Bathes Bathan, an agricultural economist from the University of the Philippines Los Baños.

The ube industry is marred by a plethora of problems: farmers lack technical know-how and value-adding capacity, have small land holdings, insufficient planting materials, undeveloped farm-to-market roads and processors struggle to maintain a consistent supply. Technically, as experts emphasize, there are no economies of scale.

Then there is the climate crisis that has made rainfall patterns unpredictable and extreme weather conditions more frequent.

“It is hard to pay higher prices to farmers because they do not have the capacity to create value-added products. As the supply chain gets longer, the profit margins of ube farmers become thinner,” said Lance Chua, agricultural economist from Ateneo de Manila University.

“I feel it is unfair for farmers since they are not given the chance to increase their share of the revenue because they lack the capacity to do so,” Chua added.

Bathan said it is critical for farmers to be directly linked to processors to get better prices by reducing the middlemen.

“At the end of the day, the determinant of farmers’ decision to plant is price. If the price is good, they may be encouraged to produce more,” says Ditas Macabasco, senior agribusiness specialist at the University of Asia and the Pacific’s Center for Food and Agri Business.

Ube production has been declining over the years due to various planting challenges. Ube output peaked at 30,000 metric tons in 2006. Last year, it fell below 13,000 metric tons.

(Up next: Logistical challenges)