Short answer. No. Article 1681 of the Civil Code says the lessee has no right to a reduction of the rent if the fruits are lost after they have been separated from their stalk, root or trunk. Once the crops are harvested, later loss falls on the tenant, not the rent.
What the law says
Neither does the lessee have any right to a reduction of the rent if the fruits are lost after they have been separated from their stalk, root or trunk.
Civil Code, Article 1681 — No Reduction After Separation of Fruits. Read the full provision →
Harvest is the cut-off point
The law draws a clear line at the moment of harvest. It provides that the lessee does not have any right to a reduction of the rent if the fruits are lost after they have been separated from their stalk, root or trunk. In everyday terms, once the crop has been gathered, picked, or cut, it has left the field and the risk of what happens to it afterward shifts entirely to the tenant. A fire in the storehouse, spoilage in transport, or theft of the sacks already reaped is the tenant's loss and gives him no claim to pay less rent.
Why the law stops relief at separation
This makes sense alongside the rule for crops still growing. Rent relief in farm leases is tied to the productivity of the land and to disasters that strike the standing crop before it can be gathered. Once the fruits are separated from the plant, they are no longer a matter of the land yielding its produce; they are ordinary goods in the tenant's hands. Losing them is like losing any other harvested stock the tenant owns. The lease was a bargain about the use of the land, not a guarantee that everything the tenant reaps will safely reach market.
How this fits with the disaster rule
It helps to compare this with the relief the law does allow. Where an extraordinary and unforeseen event destroys more than half of the fruits while they are still part of the growing crop, a tenant may have a right to a reduced rent. This article marks where that protection ends. The same typhoon that would support relief if it flattened the standing crop gives no relief if it instead destroyed grain already harvested and stored. The decisive question is timing: was the loss suffered before or after the fruits were separated from the stalk, root, or trunk?
Protecting a harvested crop is the tenant's job
Because post-harvest loss falls on the tenant, safeguarding the gathered crop is his own responsibility, through proper storage, prompt sale, and, where sensible, insurance. He cannot look to a rent reduction to soften a loss that occurred after reaping. If a tenant believes his situation genuinely involves crops lost before separation, that is a different question governed by the rules on standing crops and extraordinary events. But for produce already off the plant, the article is unambiguous: the loss does not reduce the rent, and the tenant bears it.