Japan financing eyed for farm machineries

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) is looking to secure financial assistance from Japan for its mechanization and equipment modernization program in a bid to reduce post-harvest losses.

In a recent visit to Japan, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Pinol said he looked for financial aid in the neighboring country amid continuing losses in the local agriculture sector caused by the lack of efficient post-harvest facilities.

“I explored the possibility of getting foreign financing so DA could provide more farm machineries to farmers and modern storage equipment to fisher folks,” Pinol said.

“The prospects are very encouraging with the Ministry of Agriculture of Japan and the Japan International Cooperation Agency committing to look into the mechanization needs of our country,” he added.

The agri chief, however, did not say how much financial assistance the Philippines could get from Japan.

The country’s lack of access to efficient farm equipment and facilities has a great effect on the national post-harvest loss level, which averages at 16 percent annually.

This translates to about three million metric tons (MT) of rice loss per year.

“It is worse in fisheries where about 40 percent of the fish catch and aqua harvests is lost because of lack of facilities,” Pinol said.

While modern rice harvesters will require huge capital investments, the agri chief added that additional production resulting from minimal post-harvest losses could easily enable farmers to recover their expenses.

“For example, the combine harvester, which could also harvest corn, could cover five hectares in an eight-hour operation. Compare that to about five days for one hectare, especially now that there are fewer farm workers,” Pinol said.

“The manual harvesting also results in tremendous grains losses from the cutting of the standing paddy rice using a scythe, to the bundling and transporting of the harvested rice, to the inefficient mechanical threshing and the primitive way of drying it under the sun,” he added.

The DA has been pushing for a standardized mechanization program that would reduce post-harvest losses in the farm sector to help the country achieve 100 percent rice self-sufficiency.

DA-attached agency Philippine Center for Post-harvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech) is looking to increase the country’s mechanization level to four horsepower per hectare (HP/ha) this year to be at par with ASEAN neighbors.

The level of farm mechanization in the country is currently at three  HP/ha from the .75 HP/ha status in 2010.

PhilMech said an increase in farm mechanization could make Filipino farmers as competitive as their counterparts in Thailand and Vietnam.