DA: 30 percent of crops wasted due to poor logistics

MANILA, Philippines — Nearly a third or 30 percent of the country’s agricultural produce is wasted because of a poor logistics system, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said yesterday, as it cited the need to invest “heavily” in post-harvest facilities to reduce losses and lower commodity prices.

Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said a lot of infrastructure, including agri-industrial ports and cold storage facilities, must be built to address the oversupply of vegetables and other crops.

“We also have a very big move on the logistics – 30 percent of our produce, especially of vegetables, is gone because of wastage because of the poor logistics system in our food supply chain. If we can lessen, or hopefully almost eliminate, those losses, that will be equivalent to at least 10 to 15 percent less cost for our vegetables and high-value crops like fruits,” Tiu Laurel said.

Tiu Laurel admitted that there is no accurate data to quantify farm losses and that the 30 percent estimate was based on his experience in the business sector as owner of a cold chain logistics company.

According to Tiu Laurel, the country is losing about 12.7 to 15 percent of its rice production or about 450,000 tons per year because of the lack of post-harvest facility.

“No major post-harvest facility was funded by the government in the last 40 years; only small ones, piecemeal which is actually irrelevant or useless, what a waste. So, that’s why we need really to fund these projects but we cannot build small, we have to build bigger,” the agriculture chief said.

“Let’s not say no investment – it’s like minimal investment... I cannot say there is none but the effect of the investment in the past administrations is insignificant.  I’m not privy to the direction of the past administrations, but for me, I just can say it was a wasted opportunity.”

In post-harvest facilities alone, P93 billion is needed in the next three years to save P10.7 billion annually on wasted rice and corn, he said.

“For cold storage, my budget this year is only P1 bullion so I will focus all of that on four cold storage (facilities) to address that vegetable issue; but that can only cover part of Luzon. So,