Republic of the Philippines
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Philippine Center for Postharvest
Development and Mechanization
CLSU Compound, Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija

NEWS STORIES

Postharvest consultation workshops continue
by Kristine S. Samoy (November 10, 2006)
The phase II of the Collaborative Project on Postharvest Database and Master planning started its series of planning and consultation workshops in the different provinces of Luzon covering regions CAR, IV and V. Ten provinces finished their consultation workshops out of the 12 provinces targeted this year.


In the Visayas, two provinces in regions VI and VII finished conducting their postharvest planning and consultation workshops. In Mindanao, three cities in regions X, XI, and CARAGA finished their workshops. Coordination with other local government units is still on going with the other provinces.


The postharvest planning and consultation workshop is a bottom-up, participatory planning process where farmer leaders and municipal agricultural officers convene for a two-day workshop in order to determine the status of the postharvest industry of the province and come-up with their provincial postharvest development plan. Parts of the activities undertaken prior to the workshop are data gathering of agricultural information and inventory of their postharvest facilities. The data gathered are validated and encoded in the postharvest inventory software created by BPRE.


The postharvest inventory software will be installed to the different provincial agricultural offices for easy generation and access. The data generated in the software will also be used in the determination of postharvest facility requirements and in the application of Geographical Information System (GIS).
The phase I and phase II implementation of the project covered 18 provinces last year. Revisions of the postharvest development plans of the 18 provinces are on-going.


The Masterplanning project is spearheaded by Dr. Rodolfo P. Estigoy for Luzon, Engr. Arlene Joaquin for Visayas and Dir. Racquel Bermundo for Mindanao.