84 post-harvest facilities deployed in Mindanao

AS of January 31, 2018, there had already been a total of P80.88 million worth of PostHarvest Facilities (PHF) released for the farmers in Mindanao.

This amount is part of the total P104.87 million PHF project cost budget under the Mindanao Sustainable Agrarian and Agriculture Development Project (MinSAAD) project of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) with a total project cost of P4.4 billion.

Under the PHF program, there are already a total of 62 approved subprojects for Northern Mindanao, Davao, and Soccsksargen Regions.

As per the data provided by DAR MinSAAD, there are a total of 84 total units of PHF to be given in Northern Mindanao with 10 for Bukidnon, 18 for Lanao del Norte; Davao Region with six for Compostela Valley, six for Davao del Sur; and Soccsksargen with 17 for North Cotabato, eight for South Cotabato, and 19 for Sultan Kudarat.

For Northern Mindanao Region, there is a total of P33.40 million allotted for the 28 PHFs and already 12 units were released amounting to P23.84 million.

On the other hand, for Davao Region, the total project cost of the 12 PHFs amounts to about P18.82 million. As of January 31 of this year, six units were already released amounting to P14.38 million.

For Soccsksargen region, a total of P42.65 million of 28 PHFs were already released. This is part of the P52.65 million total subproject cost for the region equivalent to 44 units of PHFs.

According to MinSAAD Agriculture, Agribusiness and Agroforestry (AAD) Component Manager Alvin Obrique, most of these PHF are to be used for the post-harvest requirements of crops such as coffee, peanut, rice/corn, abaca, and rubber.

“We are trying to support products that are already abundant in the area of these farmers benefitting from the agrarian reform projects,” said Obrique.