DA registers cold storages
We also have imperfections in our systems, but it’s also high time that all cold storage should be registered
Daily TribuneWe also have imperfections in our systems, but it’s also high time that all cold storage should be registered
The Department of Agriculture wanted all cold storage facilities to be registered so that the government can stop agricultural products from being smuggled.
DA deputy spokesperson Rex Estoperez made the announcement in a radio interview on Sunday after an agriculture group asked the Agriculture Department and the Bureau of Customs to be stricter about how they watch the entry of agricultural products into the country.
Estoperez said the cycle in which traders hoard agricultural products during harvest time, store them in cold storage facilities, and only sell them when prices go up should end.
"We also have imperfections in our systems, but it's also high time that all cold storage should be registered," he said.
Below cost
Estoperez mentioned that when onions are worth between P15 and P20 once harvested, while the cost of making them is P35. He said that the traders take and put them in storage.
"The traders take these commodities and store them in their warehouses. However, when you look at their warehouses, there are none because they are being transferred," he said in Filipino.
Estoperez mentioned that these smuggled agricultural products decompose when they end up in improper and unhygienic cold storage facilities.
He added that these illegally grown crops rot in cold storage facilities that aren't clean and aren't set up right.
Estoperez also reiterated that the seized imported onions were unsafe for people to eat. Hence, farmers and sellers could no longer sell them at a lower price at Kadiwa stalls.
Smuggled onions won't be sold
Last week, DA said it was thinking about selling white onions from Manila City's Divisoria to the Kadiwa stalls.
But the P3.9 million worth of onions that were seized had to be sent to the Bureau of Plant Industry to be counted and checked.
Estoperez said in the recent Saturday News Forum that a phytosanitary test on the onions showed that they were unsafe for people to eat.
"The results do not look good. The onions look like they had already deteriorated when the officials confiscated these goods since it's difficult for them to pull them out," Estoperez said.
"When it decomposes, it will affect other onions, too," he added.
In its last inventory, DA wrote down 13,000 metric tons of red onions. The Agriculture department thinks that by the first or second week of December, farmers will have picked another 5,000 metric tons.
