Philippine farmers struggling to keep up as global appetite for purple yam grows

Lack of 'planting material' and climate change among reasons for ube shortage

- Rambo Talabong

Ms Teresita Emilio harvesting ube in Benguet. Annual ube production in the Philippines has slipped from about 15,000 tonnes in 2021 to about 14,000 tonnes in the past two years, according to government data. But experts have quadrupled in recent years to about 200 tonnes annually.

(PHOTOS: JES AZNAR/NYTIMES)

In New York City, people line up outside a bakery before it opens to buy a brioche doughnut whose glaze shines a startling purple. In Paris, people sip purple-coloured lattes with a mellow, nutty scent. In Melbourne, a purple tinge gives hot cross buns a gentle sweetness.

The common ingredient in these items is ube, or the Philippine purple yam, and the world’s new hunger for it is starting to strain the people who farm it. The country grows about 14,000 tonnes of it a year and is considered to be the world’s top producer.

Up a hill and among the trees in Benguet, a mountainous province in the Philippines, Ms Teresita Emilio scanned the ground and found a stump almost invisible to the naked eye. She slowly dug around it with a metal rod before using her gloved hands.

“I need to be careful. I might injure it,” said Ms Emilio, 62, reaching into the narrow hole. She tugged.

Snap. She pulled out what looked like a pudgy tree branch, the size of a newborn, cradled in her arms. From the base of its head, where the root connected to the stem, radiated the colour purple. Raw ube.

“It’s not a lot,” she said.

As ube has gained ground globally, Filipino farmers like Ms Emilio are barely keeping up.

At home, the tuber - which is native to the country and grown mostly on small, seasonal plots - has long been turned into jams, ice creams and cakes. Now its photogenic hue and subtle flavour have helped fuel a viral craze - putting pressure on the Philippines to supply more, even as climate change ravages harvests and producers in China and Vietnam ramp up their own purple yams.