The Department of Agriculture (DA) said four major cold storage facilities in various locations are due for completion next year.
The DA said cold storage facilities with a capacity of 4,000 to 5,000 pallet positions each are being constructed in Pili, Camarines Sur; San Jose, Occidental Mindoro; Taguig City; and Cabanatuan City.
The department said it will also roll out some 60 modular cold storage units, each the size of a standard 40-foot shipping container and designed to be easily transportable.
“This is the first time that the DA will roll out this massive cold storage system. All of these will be deployed and finished next year,” Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel, Jr. told reporters at a briefing last week.
Aside from cold storage hubs, the DA is also expanding the network of drying and rice processing systems, to reduce losses and improve the quality of agricultural produce.
The DA said it completed the construction of 145 rice processing systems (RPS) between 2023 and 2025, with nine more units expected to be operational by March. It is also planning to build 370 additional drying systems in major rice-producing provinces.
Rice processing systems are integrated facilities that include mechanical dryers, rice mills, and related equipment designed to improve the efficiency of drying and milling palay (unmilled rice).
Mr. Laurel said the new facilities are expected to result in the recovery of about 7% more rice during processing, thereby increasing farmer incomes.
“The difference between the price of wet and dry palay is P4 to P5. If the cost to dry palay is just P2, that means there’s an additional P2 for farmers,” he said. — Vonn Andrei E. Villamiel