Tramline, storage facilities to cut agri losses in Cordilleras

BAGUIO CITY – High production cost and overproduction of highly perishable agricultural products will be addressed with the construction of heavy-duty tramlines and storage facilities in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).

Department of Agriculture Assistance Secretary for Logistics Danny Atayde, in a media interview on Thursday, said data gathering for the four-year development plan for rice and highland vegetables is ongoing and the program will be implemented within the Marcos administration.

He said the heirloom rice and vegetable farms in the region already have tramlines.

“But they are of low capacity (and) that is among the things we will address in the next four years as part of the plan laid down by Secretary (Francisco Tiu) Laurel when he assumed office,” he said on the sidelines of the giant “Paella ala Cordillera” cooking event, the culminating activity of the Farmers’ and Fisherfolk’s Month at Melvin Jones football field here.

Atayde said some rice farmers need to travel for three hours before they can bring their produce to their destination, increasing the costs and inefficiency in the production line.

“We will make it efficient by placing tramlines with capacity of about 20 tons that will carry the load to the road, where there will also be post-harvest equipment that will allow temporary storage and do not require them to be immediately delivered to the market,” he said.

Atayde said flooding the market with supply causes prices to drop and leads to losses.

“The DA plans to put up modular storage (areas) near the farms that are solar power-run, allowing the scheduling of deliveries and allowing continuous supply, lessening the movement of perishable goods by using reefer trucks for efficiency,” he said.

Atayde also mentioned DA’s initiative to approach the Toll Regulatory Board and the Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation to give discounts to vegetable deliveries.

DA Undersecretary for rice industry development Cristopher Morales said in the same interview that the department continues to support heirloom rice farmers.

“We have an heirloom rice project of scaling up technology, which will be mostly placed in the Cordillera since the commodity is highly produced in the region. We have also included for the 2025 budget the DA-CAR’s proposal to rehabilitate the rice terraces,” he said.

Morales said they are currently doing a backbone database mapping of rice products.

“Database mapping is one of the priorities of our secretary to be able to know the specific strategic intervention needed to boost our products,” he said. (PNA)