Lack of Technology Causes Food Losses Among APEC Developing Economies

Iloilo City, Iloilo — The lack of access to modern technology has caused food losses during the course of production among developing economies in the Asia-Pacific region, a Philippine agriculture official has said.

“For developing countries like the Philippines, the loss comes from the post-harvest side,” Executive Director of the Department of Agriculture’s Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PHilMech) Rex Bingabing said on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) High Level Policy Dialogue on Food Security and the Blue Economy and Related Meetings here Monday.

Food losses vary from one economy to another, Bingabing said, noting that 20 percent to 30 percent of food losses in developed economies take place after the harvest.

“For developed economies, the losses come from mostly on what they term food waste. These are the wasted food, leftovers, and spoilages,” he said, adding that developed economies have better purchasing power to buy food than developing economies.

“Developed economies are buying more than they can consume,” he said, acknowledging that developed economies have efficient technologies to reduce food losses from production to post-harvest.

However, it is the other way around for developing economies, Bingabing said.

He noted that food wastage in developing economies is only at 5 percent to 10 percent percentage their food loss is higher, mainly due to poor access to modern technology.

For the Philippines, Bingabing said the government has initiated mechanization programs to address post-harvest losses.

“We have the mechanization program for different commodities. We have for rice, corn and high-value crops. So under the program, we are giving farm machinery, production machinery, and processing equipment and facilities to farmers’ cooperatives,” he cited.

For instance, he said, rice farmers in Nueva Ecija who have access to modern machinery, have reduced their post-harvest loss in rice from 16.4 percent to 10 percent.

The government is also looking at decreasing losses in corn production from 7 percent to 5 percent, said Bingabing.

“The idea is to (help) them (access) this new technology for them to have better productivity and reduce losses because they use more efficient machines for processing,” he said. PNA (kc)