BUTUAN CITY, June 6 (PNA) — A modern mango processing post-harvest facility may soon rise at a booming seaside municipality of Agusan del Norte, which is among the producers of the best quality mangoes in the country today.
This was announced by Mr. Jim Orprecio, the Deputy chief of Party of the Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development (Winrock) and the Philippine Cold Chain Project (PCCP), as part of his “Philippine Cold Chain Projects Updates” during the 13th Annual General Membership Meeting and Training Conference, held at Hotel Tavern in Surigao City, from June 3-6, this year.
According to Orprecio the “Mango Processing and Marketing Center” can accommodate all the harvests of mangoes in the municipality and will include the processing, washing, grading, selecting and packing area. A cold storage will also be constructed to store the left-over mangoes, ready for processing into mango purees or “dried mangoes” and other mango products.
Among the advantages of this facility according to Orprecio is that “all the harvested mangoes can be placed in this central facility and the buyers may coordinate with the center and the profits of the producers will be maximized,” Orpercio said.
At present, he said that buyers from the other regions mostly from Manila and Cebu may directly go to the mango farmers and selectively buy their produce at the dictates of the buyer’s price. Because of the lack of a post-harvest facility and storage, the mango producer may just concede with a buyer’s low price considering the perishable nature of his produce.
”The farmers or mango producers may need not be concerned anymore with their left over mangoes as these will go to the cold storage for proper processing,” Orpercio said.
The project according to him will be a joint venture with the local government unit, the Philippine Cold Chain Project and the partner government agencies.
The said facility project may also include two cold storage rooms, one to be built in partnership with the Department and Industry and the other to be with the Department of Agriculture.
The Philippine Cold Chain Project (PCCP) is a four year project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food for the Progress Program which is implemented by the Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development (Winrock), which is seeking to increase agricultural productivity here in Caraga region. The project covers 260 barangays under the five provinces and six cities here in the region. (PNA)