DA says Phl can save 1M tons of palay yearly

By Jerome Carlo R. Paunan

Thursday 5th of July 2012

QUEZON CITY, July 5 (PIA) -- If the country has enough postharvest facilities, it could save one million metric tons of palay yearly, and subsequently need not import anymore.

In a statement posted on the Department of Agriculture website, Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala said, "we can minimize post harvest losses in palay that reach over one million tons per year, if we have enough drying facilities. We can make palay production a lot cheaper, more efficient, and more convenient for farmers if we have enough farm machineries in place.”

He also encouraged the private sector to invest in rice production, processing and trading, including exports when the country eventually achieves sufficiency by 2014 and beyond.

Studies conducted jointly by the DA’s Philippine Center for Postharvest Development Mechanization (PhilMech) and Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) showed 16 percent is lost from the time palay (paddy rice) is harvested from the field, threshed, dried and then milled into rice and stored.

This is equivalent to a maximum saving of 2.66 million metric tons (MMT), based on last year’s total palay harvest of 16.68 MMT. If we could save at least six percent of total postharvest losses, we would have an additional supply of one million metric tons of palay, or roughly 650,000 MT of rice, which is more than the 500,000 MT the country is importing this year, Secretary Alcala said.

Newly installed PhilMech Director Rex L. Bingabing said in terms of percentage, the biggest amount of palay lost or wasted is during drying (5.8 percent), as most farmers dry threshed palay on roads. Further, another 5.5 percent of dried palay is lost during milling, as majority (88 percent) of millers still use single-pass facilities, with low milling recoveries ranging from 50 percent to 57 percent. Modern multipass mills have 65 percent to 70 percent milling recoveries, PhilMech said.

Other manual postharvest operations that result in palay losses are threshing (2.2 percent), harvesting (2 percent), storage and piling (1 percent). (DA/RJB/JCP/PIA NCR)