Post-Harvest Facilities

POST-HARVEST FACILITIES
Post-harvest losses are high in developing countries. They can reach 15% for palay
(IRRI, 2015), and 20-40% for vegetables (PSA 2012, as quoted by Mopera, 2016).
Mopera claims that “food loss is mostly caused by the inability of the small farmers to
provide proper post-harvest handling, which includes storage facilities, infrastructure,
cooling chains, packaging and marketing systems.”
One challenge for an efficient post-harvest facility is scale and organization. Small and
fragmented holdings do not augur well for a viable facility.
The use of combined harvesters for rice can minimize harvest losses. Modern rice mills
can yield high mill recovery.
Private-run facilities observe scale economics. A banana packing house for 25 ha can
deliver two containers of export banana a week. I also saw a coop-run kiwi packing
house in New Zealand for 150 ha.

https://www.bworldonline.com/editors-picks/2019/03/25/221890/agri-development-more-than-
irrigation-post-harvest-facilities-and-farm-to-market-roads/

“Due to climate change, our farmers find it hard to dry their produce hence, at times they used the
roads as dryers and we could not prevent them from doing so due to the lack of facility,” he said.

Geronimo said losses were high when they dry their produce at the sides of the roads, resulting in
reduced production.

“Eventually, this project is a one-stop-shop rice processing system where they could dry, store, and
process their produce,” he added.

Each of the farmers’ cooperatives and associations in the two towns received a single-pass rice mill
and mobile grain dryer.

“The proper post-harvest technology improves good quality of produce thus, empowering and
improving the lives of our farmers,” Geronimo said.

DA-PhilMech director Dionisio Alvindia said the facilities were given to the farmers from the Rice
Competitiveness Enhancement Fund under the rice tarrification law.

“The government is giving these facilities for free. We are asking that you gave your heart to this
project and have a concern for the facilities. Take good care of the facilities,” he said in his speech
during the program.

The distribution of the machinery aims to increase the harvest and income of the farmers by using
the appropriate farm mechanization technologies and equipment from planting to harvesting.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1173759
World statistics show that of the world’s total harvest of rice, only four percent
is being traded. This means that a slight decrease in the world’s cereal
production – even by just five percent – will drive the price of rice even higher,
thereby adversely affecting many countries including the Philippines.

Much of the country’s shortfall in rice supply can be attributed to lack of post-
harvest facilities which could have prevented hundreds of thousands of metric
tons of harvested palay from rotting and going to waste.

Former Palawan Rep. Abraham Mitra former chairman of the House

committee on agriculture, said “instead of using our dollars to buy rice grown
by foreigners, why not use a fraction of it for post-harvest infrastructure and
know-how so we can conserve the rice we have already produced?”

He said the Philippines loses a staggering P32.87 billion worth of rice every
year due to lack of post-harvest facilities.

Jesus Tanchanco, former administrator of the National Food Authority (NFA),

said the major challenges that confront the rice industry today and in the
coming years would include solving problems associated with post-production.

He said production gains must be complemen-ted with adequate

warehousing, handling, transport and pest-control systems that would
guarantee minimum losses for harvested grain.

Researchers have quantified the annual post-production losses and wastage

in these areas: harvesting, one to six percent; handling, two to seven percent;
drying, one to five percent; milling, two to 10 percent; and storage, two to six
percent. In total, some 10 to 37 percent of the annual harvest is lost during
processing.

To reduce these huge losses, he said, the solutions seem to lie in improving
the grains post-harvest processes. These are storage, milling, handling,
threshing and drying.

“Improved threshing and drying methods are essential to increase milling

recovery. These are primary technology that will have a great bearing on the
general improvement of the grains industry,” Tanchanco said.

He said funds must also be channeled for the purchase of post-harvest

machines and equipment on the farmer and farmer-cooperative levels. Such
an effort, he said, “would disseminate the modern methods of farm
mechanization and promote the cooperative movement at the same time.

https://www.philstar.com/business/agriculture/2010/11/14/629457/need-post-harvest-facilities-cited