By Brian Campued
To address logistics concerns of Filipino farmers and help reduce post-harvest losses, the Department of Agriculture (D.A.) opened the Oriental Mindoro Trading and Consolidation Facility (OMTCF) and the Provincial Agriculture Center (PAC) in Victoria town on Monday.
Funded under the Philippine Rural Development Project, the P33.5-million OMTCF has 18 trading stalls, storage areas, washing, sorting, weighing, and packing areas, as well as dedicated loading bays to ensure efficient movement of produce and minimize spoilage.
Also launched was a Provincial Demo Farm, which includes facilities such as agriprocessing centers with modern dehydrators, vacuum fryers, and baking systems; the FoodtrIP mobile processing truck that converts surplus harvests into shelf-stable products; and a solar-powered greenhouse with hydroponics.
“This is how you raise farmer incomes—not by telling them to plant more, but by making sure what they harvest actually reaches the market at the right price,” Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said in a news release.
“When farmers earn more, rural economies move faster, food becomes more affordable, and food security becomes real.”
The agency likewise expanded the “Benteng Bigas Meron (BBM) Na” Program in Oriental Mindoro, which is expected to benefit around 70,000 households in the province.
Agriculture Asec. Genevieve Velicaria-Guevarra noted that palay stocks in National Food Authority warehouses remain sufficient even with the intensified expansion of the P20 rice project.
“With the main harvest season coming in March, our latest inventory shows sufficient palay stocks in NFA warehouses that can be released, allowing the NFA to continuously buy palay at a fair price from our farmers,” Guevarra said.
The Agriculture department previously expanded the BBM Na Program in Pangasinan and Aklan in January, in line with the administration’s push to ensure that more Filipinos will have access to affordable and high-quality rice.
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