LAOAG CITY—Farmers in the province of Ilocos Norte look forward to the operation of a tomato cold storage facility to help reduce their post-harvest losses due to spoilage.
Funded by the World Bank worth PHP38 million under the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) of the Department of Agriculture (DA), the facility to be managed by the San Joaquin Multi-purpose Cooperative will be constructed in Barangay 1 San Joaquin at the back of the Sarrat gasoline station.
Once completed, Lucresia Ver, vice chair of the San Joaquin Multi-purpose Cooperative, said in a media interview that the facility will benefit local tomato growers.
Without a storage facility, around 25 percent of their tomato production goes to waste.
“The facility will be constructed on a hectare of land with four rooms,” she said, citing it will be the first tomato cold storage facility to be constructed in the province so far.
The project is eyed to be completed within this year following the ground-breaking ceremony on Wednesday.
Tomato is among the high-value crops of Ilocos Norte with a ready market but with the closure of the Northern Foods Corporation (NFC) that is engaged in tomato paste production in Northern Luzon, many contract growers have shifted to other crops.
Ilocos Region used to supply about 13 percent of the country’s 30,000 metric tons annual consumption of tomato paste.
Around 3,000 tomato growers shifted to other high-value crops following the closure.