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DAVAO CITY—The
country loses some P50 billion yearly in postharvest
wastage of crops, fruits and vegetables, with palay
turning in more losses enough to turn around the huge
import requirement for rice, a Department of Agriculture
research bureau said.
Wastage
of these food items after harvest ranges from as low as
12.7 percent for corn and 14.84 percent for palay, to as
high as 23 percent to 32 percent for fruits and 42
percent for vegetables, a powerpoint presentation of the
Bureau of Postharvest Research and Extension (BPRE)
shows.
Measuring this postharvest wastage in terms of palay
production in 2006, for instance, showed that the
country lost 2.27 million metric tons (MMT) for the
year’s harvest of 15.33 MMT.
When
measured in milled rice form, 1.48 MMT was lost then,
estimated to value at P28.82 billion. The price of a
well-milled rice then was P19.49 per kilogram.
That
year, said Ricardo Cachuela, BPRE executive director,
the country also imported 1.62 MMT of rice.
“Negating that loss, that’s what we want to pursue,
would mean that we would have imported only 140,000 MT
of rice, rather than 1.62 million MT,” he told the
participants to the ninth Post-Harvest Loss Prevention
Week held at the Feliz Resort here.
Cachuela
represented Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, who was
supposed to address Thursday the Post-Harvest Festival
and conference here, which was also the commemoration of
the 30th anniversary of the BPRE.
Over the
same reckoning year 2006, yellow corn harvest of 3.72
MMT lost 470,000 MT to postharvest wastage. The loss was
estimated at P4.3 billion.
The
white corn harvest of 2.36 MMT on the same year lost
300,000 MT, estimated at P2.71 billion.
The
country imported 307,000 MT that year, the BPRE
presentation shows.
Cachuela
attributed the losses to the continued reliance on
antiquated postharvest practices “which are inefficient
and causing a lot of damage and physical loss of grains”
and to the low adoption of available new technology, as
well as the lack of appropriate postharvest technology.
He said that this led to reduction of income of farmers,
“which reflects onto the consumers in terms of prices.”
“This
affects food security to the point that one of our
insecure moves is to stock on our cereals longer than
the 30 days [buffer] that we are doing in the past,” he
said.
He added
the postharvest losses have hindered the thrust of the
agriculture sector to modernize itself, “a move that we
hope would improve the plight of our farmers.”
Cachuela
said the BPRE has already developed technologies
adaptable to the country’s environment. “I think we
should stop importing the machineries and some
technologies from outside because what usually happens
is that our farmers would use them for a while, and then
revert to their traditional practice.”
He said
the locally developed technology includes the moisture
meter, which measures the moisture content of the grains
and the fruits; the hermetic storage for outdoor
storage; mycotoxin control measure, used to detect
contaminations in aquatic fishes like tilapia; and
drying and dehydration technology.
In
mechanization, “we have the portable corn planter, boom
spray [used in banana and mango], and corn picker and
harvester.”
Carchuela said the BPRE has also fine-tuned the tramline
system, used to convey harvested items through cables.
This system, along with the cold-chain system, are used
in handling harvested crops and vegetables.
“We
would be seeing wider implementation of this cold-chain
system in the future to take care of the cold storage,
precooling and refrigerated van requirement of crop and
vegetable growers,” he said.
Other
postharvest prevention measures to be undertaken
includes trading and processing, and discarding kerosene
and gasoline in such devices as a furnace. Cachuela said
that biomass materials, usually derived from animal
manure and other degradable materials, would be
extensively used to run the furnace and other farm
devices.
“Farm-to-market roads, fish ports and abattoirs would be
constructed, too, as infrastructure support to the farm
production,” he added.
More
important, though, he said, “is the enforcement of
policies and wider support to policy researches.” An
enforcement measure against using concrete roads for
drying has been implemented in
Luzon “to keep the farmers away from danger as well as to avoid
wastage.”
“I
believe that there would be no more hunger or food
crisis if the postharvest losses are minimized,” he
said. |
