Philippine: DA building onion storage facilities
Posted by Labels: Grain Storage and Warehouse, Onion, Philippines, VegetableBy MARVYN N. BENANING
(MB.com.ph) The Department of Agriculture (DA) will construct 18 storage facilities for onions in five provinces next year.
Director Ricardo Cachuela of the Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech) said the original plan was only for four such facilities but Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala opted for more.
These storage facilities will be located in Nueva Ecija, Mindoro Oriental, Mindoro Occidental, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur.
Cachuela said the project is under the High Value Crops Development Program (HVCDP) that Alcala is pushing.
Cold storage facilities will permit the storage of onions from four to six months, thus assuring the market of enough supply throughout the year and blunting smuggling, which intensifies as demand for onions rises during the lean months.
“While onion farmers can produce the crop in abundance, postharvest losses on onions ranging from 15 percent to 25 percent can reduce the earnings of farmers. On top of that, farmers lose their bargaining power to sell their onions at a higher price if their onions are not stored properly,” Cachuela said.
The onion storage facility, also called “hanger storage,” holds loosely stored onions in bulk or bags in a shed structure with good ambient air circulation with cool and dry storage conditions. Too much heat or moisture can shorten the shelf life of onion.
PhilMech said the onion hanger facility is a two-story structure that cost between P1 million and P1.5 million each. The total budget for the 18 onion storage facilities is P21 million.
Each facility can store between 2,000 to 3,000 bags of onion.
Based on the survey of PhilMech, onion is among the agricultural commodities that are stored in the country’s cold chain system along with lettuce, broccoli, meat and tuna.
0 comments:
Posting Komentar