THE war in the Middle East has once again exposed the Philippines’ dangerous dependence on imported oil- and gas-based fertilizers. As global tensions rise, so do input costs, placing Filipino farmers at the mercy of forces entirely beyond their control.
A month after the war began, the price of a 50-kilo bag of synthetic urea has jumped by at least a third, from around P1,500 to P2,000. For a rice farmer applying four bags per hectare, that’s an additional P2,000 per cropping. Layer on rising fuel and logistics costs, and the outcome is predictable: reduced inputs, smaller cultivated areas, and lower yields.
The government itself admits this looming crisis. A senior official warned the Senate on March 24 that production could plunge, food prices could spike, and farmers’ incomes could shrink in the coming months.
This is not new. The same vulnerabilities were exposed during the Russia-Ukraine war, at the start of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration in 2022. Back then, the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) urged a shift toward locally produced biofertilizers — and the president agreed. The policy direction was clear: reduce import dependence, support Filipino science, and lower farmers’ costs through the subsidized distribution of organic alternatives.
The science has never been in question. Field data have long shown that biofertilizers developed by Filipino scientists can replace a substantial portion of imported urea.
Bio-N, for instance, is a proven technology developed by the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology — which is located inside the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) campus — with public funds from the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). It enables crops to draw nitrogen from the air, cutting fertilizer costs, restoring soil health, and easing pressure on foreign exchange.
So what went wrong?
From 2022 onward, billions of pesos were allocated to roll out this policy. Yet, year after year, the funds went largely unused. By 2026, the program was effectively killed with a zero budget. The official reasons: “controversies” and “ownership issues.”
But let’s be blunt: the problem is not the technology, but control.
At the center of the controversy was the UPLB’s March 2023 decision, through its chancellor, to grant Agri-Specialist Inc. (ASI) an exclusive license over Bio-N. That license made ASI the sole authority to produce, market and distribute the product nationwide.
It appears that the UPLB, which will earn substantial royalties from the transaction, will be a primary beneficiary. Other stakeholders, particularly small farmers and their organizations, will lose the opportunity to make their own Bio-N and will have to buy it from ASI.
This raises a fundamental and troubling question: if Bio-N is a government-funded, publicly developed technology — already disseminated for decades through cooperatives, local government units (LGUs), and state institutions — why suddenly make it exclusive?
Why concentrate control in the hands of a single private entity when the entire point of the program was widespread, decentralized access?
Even more puzzling: if Bio-N is now being donated, distributed and promoted for nationwide use, what justifies exclusivity at all?
One cannot claim public good on one hand and enforce private monopoly on the other.
Reports indicate that ASI has already been telling farmers’ groups, cooperatives, and even government agencies to stop producing or using Bio-N without its permission. The result? Supply disruptions, reduced access, and thousands of farmers deprived of a technology that had already been improving their yields and lowering their costs.
This is not just policy inconsistency; it is a direct blow to farmers’ welfare.
Let’s not forget: Bio-N was developed in 1985 by Dr. Mercedes Umali-Garcia and Teofila S.J. Santos using bacteria from “talahib” roots. It was funded by taxpayers and, starting in 2002, scaled up through a nationwide network of 83 accredited mixing plants involving government agencies, LGUs, state universities and colleges, and farmers’ organizations (including the Federation of Free Farmers and the Philippine Maize Federation). It was never meant to be locked up.
Yet today, access is being restricted in the name of intellectual property.
And then comes a most telling detail.
ASI recently announced a “donation” of 200,000 kilos of Bio-N valued at P720 million — equivalent to P3,600 per kilo or P720 per 200-gram pack. But the same product sells online for as low as P138.
With those numbers, one has to ask: is this generosity — or positioning?
Shortly after, ASI reportedly pushed for an executive order mandating the use of Bio-N in government programs and integrating it into the DA’s voucher system.
The pattern is hard to ignore: Control the supply. Limit competitors. Then secure guaranteed demand through government policy.
This is not how a public good should be managed.
During a national emergency, when farmers need affordable and accessible inputs, the last thing the country needs is artificial scarcity created by exclusivity arrangements.
Biofertilizer technology was meant to liberate Filipino agriculture from import dependence, not replace it with a domestic monopoly.
The government must act decisively: review the exclusivity agreement, restore open access to Bio-N, and ensure that publicly funded technologies remain exactly that — public.
It is time that biofertilizers are treated as modern-day “manna,” multiplied by the creativity and industry of our scientists, farmers, and entrepreneurs. Let us ensure that these “free gifts of nature” are shared equitably with all Filipinos, especially during their current calvary of penury and want.
Leonardo Montemayor is the board chairman of the Federation of Free Farmers and a former agriculture secretary. Argel Joseph Cabatbat is the chairman of Magsasaka Party-list and its representative in the 18th Philippine Congress.