Production of Bohol’s celebrated Ubi Kinampay has been declining for years as fewer Boholanos continue planting the variety, even as the province pursues Geographical Indication (GI) protection and fields growing interest from foreign buyers, according to the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPA).
The OPA said the drop in local production mirrors a national decline in ube farming.
Bohol no longer exports Kinampay directly.
Instead, buyers from other provinces travel to the island to purchase raw tubers, which are then processed elsewhere — a supply chain the province says it cannot fully trace once the tubers leave Bohol.
Ubi powder processors that once operated locally were unable to sustain their operations.
Planting materials shortage
Officials pointed to a chronic shortage of planting materials as the industry’s most persistent obstacle.
Many Kinampay plantlets die three to four months after planting, before tubers have a chance to form — a problem the OPA says has been documented since research into the crop began in 1986.
No research to date has determined why the plants die at that stage or how they respond to prolonged rain and extended cloud cover, officials said, with most studies instead focused on characterization, adaptability, and yield.
Government support for research has also fallen short.
A 2010 request for P5 million pesos to build a tissue culture laboratory, submitted to then-Department of Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, was not acted on until 2021 — and the resulting facility was destroyed by Super Typhoon Odette before it could meaningfully boost planting stock.
A separate P5-million-peso provincial tissue culture laboratory, approved in 2022, has yet to be constructed.
Storage losses
Even after harvest, growers lose significant volumes of Kinampay to storage decay.
Tubers can shrink to as little as 60% of their original mass while stored, when they don’t rot outright.
Kinampay’s notably thin skin also bruises easily, a fragility Boholanos treat with such regard that dropped tubers are traditionally kissed.
The cumulative effect is a supply that runs out well before demand does — restaurants and local processors typically exhaust their Kinampay stock by September or October each year.
Tight supply
The production shortfall is reflected in pricing.
During the December-to-January harvest season, Kinampay sells for 90 to 130 pesos per kilogram, compared with 75 to 85 pesos for other purple ube varieties and 55 to 65 pesos for white varieties.
Outside harvest season, when supply is scarcest, prices can reach 200 to 300 pesos per kilogram.
Province pursuing GI status
Even as production lags, the province is working to protect and grow the Kinampay brand.
Bohol has asked IPOPHIL to grant Geographical Indication status affirming that the true Kinampay variety comes only from Bohol, distinguishing it from other purple yam varieties Boholanos already grow under separate names, such as Baligonhon, Tam-isan, and VU2.
The OPA said at least 15 foreign trading companies have contacted the province seeking to buy Ubi powder and other Kinampay products, and four international non-government organizations have asked for help drafting funding proposals to official development assistance programs.
The OPA completed a value chain analysis in 2024-2025 without national funding and submitted it to the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Science and Technology, and the Department of Trade and Industry, but has not received a response from any agency to date.
Officials also disputed online claims of abundant Kinampay supply on the island, calling them speculative and not grounded in the province’s own production data, which OPA said only it and PGBH fully understand.
Provincial roadmap
To address the decline, Bohol’s provincial Ubi Board has set a roadmap for production, research, investment, and promotion, backed by P4 million pesos in annual funding since 2024.
The OPA also runs a buyback program under its Ubi Dispersal Program to distribute planting materials, primarily Kinampay, and has organized growers into six clusters under a single provincial federation registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Each cluster is expected to eventually share a processing facility under the roadmap, and the province is pursuing a tripartite project to build a Bohol Food Innovation Center for Research and Development focused on Ubi.
Despite output constraints, officials said Bohol is not concerned about competition from countries growing larger volumes of ube, arguing that Kinampay’s dense, fleshy texture and naturally sweet, earthy aroma — which persists even after cooking — remain unmatched elsewhere.