MANILA — The Philippines loses about 30 percent of its vegetable produce due to wastage, Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel said on Tuesday.

The DA chief gave the statement days after several farmers reportedly threw away tons of cabbage due to overproduction, saying that the figure is based on his “own experience in the business sector,” when he used to run a cold chain company.

“Thirty percent of our produce of vegetables has gone to wastage due to poor logistics in our supply change,” he said in a press conference in Malacañang.

“If we can lessen or eliminate yung losses na yun, that is equivalent to 10-15 percent of the cost of our vegetables and fruits,” he said.

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As for rice and corn, around 450,000 tons are wasted in the Philippines annually, which is about 12-15 percent of total production, Laurel said.

The Philippines can save some P10.5 billion annually if there will be no rice and corn wastage, he said.

The country can also reduce its rice imports by 10 percent, he said, noting that the country sourced some 3.5 million tons of rice from international producers in 2023.

“Ang immediate solution is cold storage for them to extend the shelf life,” he said. “But ang overproduction is also a result of poor planning."

The DA is pushing to get about P93 billion in the next 3 years to put up cold storage facilities in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, Laurel said.

The facilities are expected to be located in FTI-Taguig, Mindoro, Sariaya in Quezon Province, and La Union or Benguet, he said.

The locations of the cold storage plants in Visayas and Mindanao have yet to be determined, he said.

“Our 3-year plan is to invest heavily in post-harvest facilities and have more recovery in our product, lower the cost of rice and corn,” he said, noting that the government made no significant investments in these facilities in the past 4 years.

“Hopefully after 13-14 months, latest June next year, nandiyan na yung facility to address that,” he said.

The DA also hopes to digitalize its operations “to get more accurate production data for our production,” the Secretary said.

“Yung study on the statistics yun ang problema ko talaga from the start… Wala tayong accurate data to quantify the total kung ilan ba talaga,” he said.

“We need real production data in order to manage the food supply of the country effectively,” he said.

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