Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said Tuesday the government has no allocated funds to give aid to vegetable farmers suffering from oversupply issues and whose crops were affected by pests.

Asked in a Palace briefing what assistance could be provided to the affected farmers, Tiu Laurel replied: “As of now there is none because technically there’s no fund to help them.”

“But what I have discussed with FTI (Food Terminal Incorporated) just the other day and including Kadiwa is to install storages where they could store those vegetables. So when there are incidents like that, it’s either the farmer places his excess production in a storage facility and that’s subsidized by the government--that’s to be arranged, or the government buys those excess products at a certain price to be distributed through Kadiwa and everything,” he added.

As for the farmers who had losses due to pests, he said the government could give them seeds for replanting and additional pesticides.

Tiu Laurel said that 30 percent of the produce was wasted due to the poor logistics system in the country’s food supply chain.

“If we can lessen or hopefully eliminate those losses, that will be equivalent to at least 10 to 15 percent lesser cost to our vegetables and high-value crops like fruits,” he said. Jaspearl Tan/DMS