DA urges private sector to invest in post-harvest facilities

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga — Department of Agriculture (DA) Central Luzon urged the private sector to invest in post-harvest facilities, citing high agricultural productivity in the region.

DA Regional Executive Director Crispulo Bautista Jr. said there are crops that are only produced during the dry season or only during the wet season, however, the demand for these products is all year round.

“Given this, there is a need to preserve the quality of agricultural products and to ensure that we have sufficient supply for the whole year requirement. Thus, we need post-harvest facilities such as cold storage, drying facilities, and milling facilities. The government must take the lead on these investments so that private sector will follow,” he said.

Bautista said that for rice production, post-harvest facilities like driers, warehouses, and rice mills are needed so that when the rainy season comes, farmers have a place to go to dry their harvest.

“This way, their harvest will not spoil immediately. When farmers have these facilities, we can prevent price of rice commodity to drop especially during wet or rainy season. That way, we can help our farmers earn more,” he said.

Meanwhile, in terms of onion which is only harvested during the dry season, he said that farmers need cold storage to accommodate surplus in production.

“Due to the peak harvest of said commodity and the lack of cold storage, our farmers are really struggling and prices are dropping. That is why we must invest in these facilities to absorb all our country’s production so that we have something toto use during lean months,” Bautista said.

Aside from post-harvest facilities, the director assured that DA continues to provide other assistance to Central Luzon farmers including the provision of free seed for rice and corn, and planting materials for high value commercial crops.

He added that DA also provides small scale irrigation to organized association and cooperatives, as well as farm machineries in addition to those provided under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund program.

“With this, I am encouraging our farmers to register in the Registry System for Basic sectors in Agriculture so that they can continuously receive various aid coming from DA,” the director said.

Meanwhile, in terms of irrigation, Bautista said Central Luzon has the biggest irrigation facility, which is the Pantabangan irrigation facility; while the quality of soil in the region is adaptable for all kinds of crops.

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