The administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. plans to implement a "calibrated" importation of onions to protect local farmers during the harvest season, a government official said Saturday.

“Pagdating naman po doon sa mini-mention ninyo tungkol sa importation, iyong harvest po na ini-expect natin sa ating magsasaka, iyan po ay taken into consideration by both the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) on the high-value crop... it’s a bureau, and our unit [is] in charge of that certain commodity,” Agriculture Department Assistant Secretary Kristine Evangelista said in a briefing.

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“So a calibrated importation was something they had to look into… As of now, we are waiting for reports kung ilan po ang nag-apply and at the same time I don’t know if you noticed, mayroon pong cut-off iyong ating importation unlike before.”

Evangelista said the farmgate price of onions has gone down to P250 per kilo.

In December, onion prices rose to as high as P700 per kilo.

“But this is something that we have to validate because it might just be in one area, but so far, from the reports I am receiving from the farmers themselves, and even some institutional buyers, there has been already a decline pagdating po sa farmgate price,” Evangelista said, according to a Palace press statement.

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Meanwhile, the retail prices of onions based on DA’s daily monitoring of 13 markets in Metro Manila stood at P400 to P550.

“Mataas pa rin po iyan considering the cost structure of the onions, this is the production cost because we also talk to our farmers to find out how much it costs to produce onions,” she said.