Gosic
Related Articles
[ad_1]
Like other developing countries, Filipino agriculture is suffering from high post-harvest losses. With high-quality crops alone, losses can easily reach 20 to 40%. First, our hard-working smallholder farmers, especially in rural and remote islands, are unable to preserve their produce due to a lack of refrigerated warehouses, forcing them to sell at lower prices to middlemen and loan sharks, often fetching prices below 50% of their real value .
Second, many of the off-grid rural and remote areas of our archipelago, where agriculture, fishing and related activities are the main livelihoods of our Filipino people, suffer from unreliable power supplies, power outages, outages, etc. Third, exacerbating the increasing risks of climate change and frequent natural disasters such as typhoons , Floods, droughts, etc. the post-harvest problems and pain points of our smallholders.
Lastly, and most importantly, such on-site cold stores will help build resilient Filipino farming communities to reduce food and income losses during natural disasters such as typhoons, floods, and droughts. Appropriate on-site cold storage can play a crucial role in preserving our farmers’ products, increasing their incomes, ensuring our country’s food security and export competitiveness.
Next Agri Corporation Philippines Inc., a Filipino company developing innovative, sustainable, and affordable post-harvest technology and cold storage supply chain solutions to double the incomes of our Filipino farmers and fishermen, has now partnered with Ecozen Solutions Private Ltd. , India, an internationally recognized Indian agro technology company and leader in modular cold storage, who invented and developed decentralized, portable, state-of-the-art, solar and proprietary cold chain products to help smallholders in developing countries not only preserve their products longer and make higher profits but also preserve nature in this time of climate change. Ecozen is the world market leader in solar cold room technology and has installed units in 7 countries based on innovative business models such as CAAS. operate [Cold Chain as a service] and leasing a cold room.
As a participant in the ISA (International Solar Alliance) and recognized by the Rabo Foundation, Ashden, Global Clasp, Ecofrost is currently used by several Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), institutions, NGOs and government organizations across India to empower at least 20,000 smallholders to the reduction will reduce their post-harvest losses and increase their income. With the launch of Ecofrost on June 25, 2021 in the Philippines by the Hon. William Dar, Minister of Agriculture of the Philippines and HE Shambhu Kumaran, Ambassador of India to the Philippines, we can expect not only to have a similar impact on our Filipino smallholders, but also on our export-oriented high quality crop sector, shipping their proudly produced high quality fresh produce on our international markets!
Source – press release
