The Department of Agriculture is significantly tightening oversight of the food supply chain, ordering the mandatory registration of warehouses, cold storage facilities and other agricultural logistics hubs under the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act, while backing the mandate with tougher enforcement and penalties.
Under the newly issued Guidelines for the Registry System for Agri Storage, all facilities storing agricultural and fishery products, whether owned, leased or operated by third parties, are required to register through the DA Online Registration System. The scope is wide, covering rice warehouses, onion cold storage, meat freezers, grain silos, refrigerated container vans, and agricultural storage tanks handling both locally-sourced and imported products.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr said the registry is a critical tool in dismantling smuggling networks, ensuring food safety and protecting domestic producers.
“We cannot stop smuggling, protect public health or safeguard our farmers if we do not know where the stocks are,” Tiu Laurel said. “Registration gives government clear visibility over the supply chain so we can move quickly against hoarding, illegal imports and abusive practices that undermine Filipino producers and harm consumers.”
The policy gives teeth to Section 6 of Republic Act No. 12022, which requires agri-fishery businesses to maintain complete, accurate and auditable records for at least five years. Facility operators must disclose storage capacity, commodities handled and inventory levels, maintain monthly operational records and submit quarterly electronic reports through the relevant trade regulatory agencies.
More importantly for industry players, the guidelines spell out clear violations and sanctions. Failure or refusal to produce required documents or records upon lawful demand is considered a violation of the Act. Inability to present updated operational reports already submitted to regulators constitutes prima facie evidence of noncompliance, lowering the evidentiary threshold for enforcement actions.
Crimes committed through the use of information and communications technologies, including digital concealment or manipulation of records, fall under the Cybercrime Prevention Act, exposing violators to additional criminal liability.
Subject to due process, licenses, registrations and accreditations may be suspended, revoked or cancelled by the appropriate trade regulatory agencies, with preventive suspension allowed in cases involving imminent public danger.
The unified digital registry is designed to strengthen traceability, improve food safety oversight and generate reliable data to detect unusual stock accumulation that often precedes price manipulation and artificial shortages.
They stressed that registration does not replace licensing or accreditation, which remain the exclusive mandate of regulators such as the Bureau of Plant Industry, Bureau of Animal Industry, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, National Meat Inspection Service, Sugar Regulatory Administration and National Tobacco Administration.
Micro scale operators, including sari sari stores, wet market vendors, home-based family enterprises, itinerant peddlers, and certified barangay micro businesses with assets below three million pesos, are exempt under the law’s social justice provisions.
For medium and large operators, the signal is unmistakable. Registration is now mandatory, enforcement is data driven, and opacity in agricultural storage is becoming a legal and commercial liability.
