BAYAMBANG – Farmers here are optimistic that the mysterious disease that struck their onion plants last year will not recur in next year’s onion planting season starting after the rainy season.“As long as farmers follow the best farming methods and the kind of seeds and fertilizers recommended to them by experts; I don’t think that the disease has a chance to recur,” said Bayambang Mayor Leocadio de Vera.

De Vera expressed hope that things will go bright this year for local onion farmers after Department of Agriculture and the provincial government conducted a series of meetings with them and taught them what to do to avoid the disease.

De Vera said the disease caused by a still unknown plant virus stunted the growth of onion plants, eventually killing most of them, leaving farmers with virtually nothing to harvest.

Records of the municipal government showed that onion plantations in at least 14 barangays were affected by the mysterious onion disease.

Admitting that onion is Bayambang’s major cash crop and it’s people’s lifeblood—only second to rice—the mayor urged onion farmers to follow the farm practices recommended by experts to prevent the disease from recurring.

Bayambang is the onion capital of Pangasinan, if not in the entire Philippines, as its products are being channeled to Divisoria where they are redistributed to nearly all parts of the country.

The disease was felt not only by farmers from Bayambang but also adjacent towns of Pangasinan that also made onion as a major cash crop after the rice planting season.

De Vera believes the technicians already found the right counter-measures against the mysterious disease after farmers related to them their experiences during the last planting season and what they did to their plants.

“Our farmers vowed to change their old farming methods and adopt only the good farm practices recommended by government technicians in order to save the town’s onion industry,” De Vera said.