The scale-up of the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) will help further boost investments and the establishment of agricultural infrastructure in the Philippines, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said Monday.

“The scale-up was really designed to respond for the needs for investment mostly on agri-infrastructure and enterprises beyond what is really existing from the original design of PRDP,” DA Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa said in an interview on Monday.

He said the scaled-up PRDP intends to cover more investment and establishment of cold storages, slaughterhouses, and other agricultural infrastructure, among others.

DA Assistant Secretary for Operations and PRDP National Project Director U-Nichols Manalo, meanwhile, highlighted over P17 billion worth of investment under the scaled-up PRDP.

“The recently launched PRDP Scale-Up already has a portfolio of 75 approved infrastructure sub-projects worth P11.44 billion, 30 of which are already under construction, and 60 proposed enterprise sub-projects amounting to P6.31 billion,” he said in a speech at the PRDP Scale-Up Exhibit at the DA Central Office in Quezon City.

DA Undersecretary for Operations Roger Navarro said they wanted to make the PRDP more “globally competitive” with more projects lined up.

“The most important is yung ating (our) post-harvest facility for both rice and corn. And the other one is the cold storage for fishery and for consolidation ng ating mga (of our) vegetables,” he said in a separate ambush interview.

The original PRDP, which will end this year, was launched to establish farm-to-market roads and bridges.

Under the program, 503 rural infrastructures amounting to P31 billion and P2.93 billion worth of 667 rural enterprises were completed thus far, according to Manalo.

The PRDP scale-up, meanwhile, is set to roll until 2028.