The Department of Agriculture (DA) is urging the country’s cold chain industry players to partner with the agency, alongside local government units and farmers’ groups, to put up more facilities and reduce postharvest losses.
“With access to modern refrigeration and storage facilities, farmers and fishers could sell their quality vegetables, meat and marine products at better prices to consumers,” William Dar, agriculture secretary, said during a recent meeting with the Cold Chain Association of the Philippines (CCAP).
Dar added the construction of such facilities in major farm production areas, trading centers, livestock slaughterhouses and poultry dressing facilities, fishing grounds and municipal fishports can effectively reduce postharvest losses by at most 35 percent that could be added up to the national food supply and lowering of prices.
In particular, Dar instructed the National Meat and Inspection Service to revive the unfinished slaughterhouse and cold storage projects in Iloilo and Batangas as the said agency has already partnered with CCAP for packaging frozen pork from Mindanao for the Metro Manila market.
He also asked the Agribusiness Marketing and Assistance Service to partner with the Food Terminal Inc. and look into refurbishing and modernizing the latter’s cold storage systems in partnership with CCAP to become a hub of farm and fishery products from Calabarzon, Mimaropa and Bicol regions.
CCAP said the country’s cold chain industry is expected to grow by nine percent annually, mainly due to increasing population and consumer habit of buying more fresh and frozen produce from supermarkets and e-commerce platforms than public markets.
Notably, the group has 130 members store with a fleet of 10,000 refrigerated vehicles and containers transporting 450,000 metric tons of perishable goods annually.
