The Department of Agriculture (DA) is planning to build more cold storage facilities at the Food Terminal Inc. (FTI) in Taguig City to address overproduction and minimize post-harvest losses of agricultural products, particularly vegetables and other high-value crops.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said in a statement yesterday the agency eyes the construction of a chiller warehouse dedicated to vegetables and other high-value crops at a 1.3-hectare section of the property.
Laurel said the project will cost P500 million and would require 12 months to complete.
The facility will be equipped with a processing plant and trading area which will prioritize farmers’ produce for buffer stocking.
“Half of the warehouse should be allocated to the coil system and the other half for evaporator type. The evaporator type is for short-term storage of high-value crops. Meanwhile, the coil technology, because there is no circulating fan, moisture is kept within the storage, it will keep things fresh for a longer period,” Laurel said.
DA said the plan will result in two types of cold storage facilities, frozen and chilled but did not provide other specifications of the project.
“The immediate problem I see is the oversupply from time to time of tomatoes and cabbage. That’s why we should immediately build storage at FTI. My direction is to build a network for chilled cold storage systems,” Laurel added.
Laurel said he had a briefing with officials of FTI as they were also instructed to purchase excess produce of farmers and supply them to Kadiwa rolling stores.
FTI is a state-owned firm under the DA.
“If there is overproduction, instead of throwing it away, let FTI buy it, we can even put it in the Kadiwa program. The plan is also to strengthen the DA’s Kadiwa program. I plan to return Kadiwa to FTI after two years,” Laurel added.
Laurel said the DA is also in the process of centralizing all agriculture logistics management matters, including FTI to the soon-to-be-formed logistics office of the agency.
DA said the Logistics Office is set to handle all the agency’s existing cold storage apart from being in charge of research and inventory of all cold storage facilities within the Philippines to ensure synchronization.
