THE Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Onion Cold Storage facility is set to benefit the needs of onion farmers in Tarlac province.

The project, amounting to P20,000,000, was made possible through DA-Central Luzon-High Value Crops Development Program (HVCDP), which is funded under Bayanihan to Recover as One Act (Bayanihan 2) of the DA.

The storage will be granted to Sapang Multipurpose Cooperative located in Barangay Ablang Sapang in Moncada town.

Sapang MPC is one of the groups that participated in the expansion project of the HVCDP for onion. It started with 20 hectares of production area with six members in 2005. Now, 1,900 hectares have been planted both for the yellow and red onion with 820 members.

The 363.59-square-meter building will benefit 820 onion farmers in the Municipality of Moncada. It has a total capacity of holding 10,000 bags for storage equivalent to 24 hectares of harvests. The cold storage facility extends the shelf life of the onions while waiting to be sold to Central Luzon and Manila markets.