Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 16) — The government needs to invest more than ₱90 billion to build the infrastructure needed to ensure food security and bring down prices, according to the country’s agriculture chief.
During a sectoral meeting with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel, Jr. bared his three-year plan to boost the industry, which would prioritize establishing post-harvest and cold storage facilities across the Philippines.
“We have a lot of infrastructure to be built,” he said at a briefing.
For post-harvest facilities alone, Laurel said the Department of Agriculture (DA) will need ₱93 billion in the next three years.“[This is] in order to save ₱10.7 billion a year on wasted rice and corn. We’re losing about 12.7% to 15% of rice production due to lack of post-harvest facility,” he said.“No major post-harvest facility was funded by the government in the last 40 years. Puro patingi-tingi, maliliit [They’re small] which is irrelevant or useless,” he added.Laurel pointed out that the sector cannot afford a similar approach, stressing that the Marcos administration would have to push for bigger facilities.For cold storage facilities, the agriculture chief said he has earmarked ₱1 billion for 2023, and the DA targets to erect four cold storage facilities in Taguig, La Union or Benguet, Mindoro, and Quezon.By 2025, the government will establish cold storage facilities in the Visayas and Mindanao.Solving the problem of cold storage nationwide will require an additional ₱5 billion, he added.Laurel said the plan will also address problems with logistics, as well as push for the digitalization of data.
