The National Onion Growers' Cooperative Marketing Association (NOGROCOMA)

“To sustain the Philippines’ self-sufficiency in onions.” That’s the mission of the National Onion Growers’ Cooperative Marketing Association, or NOGROCOMA, according to Dulce Gozon, the organization’s current chair and CEO. Founded in 1954, NOGROCOMA is a 206-grower cooperative based in Bongabon, a town of 70,000 people and 28 barangays (small villages) in the province of Nueva Ecija, 100 miles north of Manila.

More than 60% of all Philippine onions are grown in this area, on some of the most productive farms in Southeast Asia. They are typically grown in seasonal rotation, in rice fields in the dry season, from November to February, after the first crop of rice has been harvested.

NOGROCOMA has had its share of ups and downs over its 50-year history. Strong for several decades as a result of a countrywide ban on the importation of onions—which was won at the urging of the cooperative’s founder, Congressman Jesus Ilagan—NOGROCOMA has struggled more recently with land degradation and increasing competition from non- member farmers in other villages. Now the cooperative faces new challenges from globalization. When the Philippines joined the World Trade Organization in the mid-1990s, the onion importation ban was repealed, opening local markets to increasingly tough competition from China and forcing NOGROCOMA to begin importing onions too.