Like other developing countries, the Philippine agriculture sector has been suffering from the high post-harvest losses. In the high-value crops alone, the losses can easily reach 20% to 40%. Firstly, our hard-working small farmers, particularly in the rural and remote islands, are unable to preserve their produce due to lack of cold-storage facilities, forcing them to sell at lower prices to the middle men and loan sharks, often realizing lower than 50% of their actual produce value.
Secondly, many of the off-grid rural and remote locations of our archipelago nation, where the agriculture, fisheries and allied activities are the main economic livelihood activities of our Filipino population, are suffering from unreliable supply of electricity, black-outs, brown-outs, etc. Thirdly, the increasing climate change risks and frequent natural disasters like typhoons, floods, droughts, etc., are exacerbating the postharvest problems and pain points of our small farmers.
Lastly and most importantly, such on-site cold-storage facilities will help to build resilient Filipino farming communities in reducing food and income losses when natural disasters like typhoons, floods, droughts occur. Appropriate on-site cold storage facilities can play a crucial role in preserving our farmers produce, increasing their income, ensuring food security and export-competitiveness of our nation.
Next Agri Corporation Philippines Inc., a Filipino corporation, which is developing innovative, sustainable and affordable post-harvest technologies and cold-storage supply chain solutions to double the income of our Filipino farmers and fisherfolk, has now partnered with Ecozen Solutions Private Ltd., India, an internationally recognized Indian agri-tech company and modular cold storage leader, which has invented and developed decentralized, portable, cutting-edge, solar and proprietary technologies - based cold chain products to help the small holder farmers in the developing countries to not only preserve their produce longer and earn bigger profits, but also preserve the nature in this era of climate change. Ecozen being the world leader in Solar Cold rooms technology, has installed units across 7 countries which are operated on innovative business models like CAAS [Cold Chain as a service] and Leasing a cold room.
A participant of ISA (International Solar Alliance) and awarded by Rabo Foundation, Ashden, Global Clasp, Ecofrost is currently being used by several Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), Institutions, NGOs and Government Organizations across India to empower atleast 20,000 small farmers to reduce their post-harvest losses and increase income. With the launching of Ecofrost on 25 June, 2021, in the Philippines, by the Hon. Dr. William Dar, Secretary of Agriculture of Philippines and H.E. Shambhu Kumaran, Ambassador of India to the Philippines, we can expect not only to bring similar impact to our small holder Filipino farmers but also to our export-oriented high value crops sector, by shipping their proudly-produced high-quality fresh produce to our international markets!
Source – Press Release
