More cold storage facilities needed – PCAFI

MANILA, Philippines — More investments in cold storage facilities for the agriculture sector are needed next year to reduce post-harvest losses and improve farmers’ income, the Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food Inc. (PCAFI) said.

PCAFI president Danilo Fausto said the lack of cold storage facilities remains a big problem in the country.

In 2020, the Department of Agriculture (DA) already underscored the need to establish more cold storage facilities in the country.

Two years after, the Philippines is still lacking in terms of storage facilities and other infrastructure, resulting in high spoilage of farm produce.

As an example, Nueva Ecija only has 10 cold storage facilities; Bulacan has eight; the National Capital Region has 27; Pangasinan has two and Occidental Mindoro has two as of September 2021.

These facilities are still enough to store agricultural products, Fausto said.

“The idea is to build more cold storage facilities for bumper harvests. Cold storage facilities are dual  purpose…it can be a freezer or a chiller,” he said.

The PCAFI official said there are pre-fabricated cold storage facilities which can be put up in a short time.

With cold storage facilities, the sector can maintain the freshness and quality of farm and fishery products, especially for bumper harvest, leading to reduced importation.

“If you have the bumper harvest…you don’t need to import. With bumper harvests, we will have more or less some surplus,” Fausto said.

Onions, for example, had a shortage of supply as early as July. Prices of red onions skyrocketed to as  high as P300 per kilo.

“We have  failed to import something like 40,000 to 50,000 so we are short of supply,” Fausto said.

The DA  earlier considered importing onions this month, but sidetracked this option as it expects some early onion harvest this month while full-blown harvest is seen by February.

With harvests coming in soon, Fausto said it was the right move to not import onions.

“It’s now too late to import. The importation should go sometime about July or  August,” he said.

The PCAFI official also expects a lot of harvest from January to March, filling up cold storage facilities.

“By April, we might see onions being thrown away because storage is no longer available. So, the idea is to put up cold storage facilities,” Fausto said.