Philippine farmers struggle to meet global demand for 'ube'

Soaring demand and extreme weather worsened by climate change have wiped out harvests of the popular purple yam, writes Rambo Talabong from Benguet province, the Philippines

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Teresita Emilio harvests purple yams in Benguet province in November.

n Sunnyside, Queens, 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, Australia, 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 more than 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, 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. Cradled in her arms, she pulled out what looked like a pudgy tree branch the size of a newborn. At the base of its head, where the root connected to the stem, radiated the colour purple. Raw ube.

"It's not a lot," Ms Emilio 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.