Agriculture Business Week

What makes a farmer wiser? Many would say that it is his experience. But for a farmer in Barangay Kadayonan in Balindong, Lanao del Sur, it was his receptiveness to new technology that made him wiser and enabled him to harvest 120 cavans per hectare from a native rice variety last year.

When asked how he did it, forty-four year-old Ali Tomara said that he was able to obtain a high yield from Batugan or Tripoli, a native variety which produces slightly aromatic, soft rice, by adopting the new farming technologies he learned from the Farmers’ Field School (FFS). This was the major activity of the fourth Technical Cooperation

Project (TCP 4) of PhilRice and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) which was implemented by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries of the ARMM, local government units, Mindanao State University, and University of Southern Mindanao.

Ali is an experienced farmer; for years, he has been planting his 2-hectare farm with rice in the rainy season and with vegetables in the dry season. What’s good about him is that despite the knowledge he had from his many years of farming, he recognizes his limitations and compensates these by adopting new farm technologies he learned from seminars like the FFS.

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Posted on November 27th, 2008 under Farming, Rice, Technology. Tags: Farmer, Farming, PhilRice, Rice. Comments: None

Filipino Consumers prefer garlic produced in the Ilocos Region, particularly in Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur, because of its more pungent and aromatic odor as well as it tangy taste.

However, the Ilocos Region produces only 65 percent or 9,551.94 metric tons (MT) of the country’s average total production of 14,695.29 MT even as the agro-climatic conditions in Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur are suitable for garlic production.

Moreover, the country’s total production is not enough to meet domestic consumption. For one thing, the Philippines imports annually an average of 164,881.35 MT of fresh and chilled garlic as condiments. In short, the total production does not even satisfy 9 percent of the domestic demand.

Even if we attain the optimum potential yield of garlic, which is 9 tons per hectare (t/ha), we would produce only 28.45 percent (46,898.19 MT) of our yearly imports from a total garlic area of 5,210.9 ha. A major reason for our appallingly low production is our low average yield of 2.81 t/ha. This yield level is not even one-third of the potential yield.

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Posted on November 26th, 2008 under Technology, Vegetables. Tags: Garlic, Veggies. Comments: None

Food safety is a serious concern, not only of food companies, but also that of the government and the general public. One of the issues of food safety is the prevention of contamination, which leads to food poisoning. US centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) estimate that anywhere from six to 33 million cases of food poisoning occur annually in the United States, ranging in severity from negligible to severe.

Companies involved in animal husbandry, animal agriculture, and food processing are continuously looking for better ways to ensure the quality of their products. The business is highly dependent on the assurance that these are safe for public consumption. This means going through rigorous testing procedures that can either be costly, time-consuming, or otherwise impractical.

Many companies have turned to DuPont, a science-based product and services company for a more innovative solution. In response, DuPont Qualicon, a part of the company’s Agriculture and Nutrition portfolio, has developed three systems for the accurate sampling and testing for dangerous organisms in food items. These new systems are highly accurate, more cost-efficient, take less time, and do not require extensive training to use.

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Posted on November 23rd, 2008 under Technology. Tags: Food, Safety, Technology. Comments: None

To lessen the cost of storing seeds, PhilRice has been developed alternative technologies for preserving the quality of seeds and protecting them from storage pests.

These are the admixture seed treatment machine (STM) and the sealed storage enclosure for hybrid rice and other seeds (SACLOB), which both utilize locally available materials and were developed by a group of engineers led by Engr. Ricardo F. Orge.

STM
Admixture seed treatment is a method of treating or saving the seeds from storage pest attacks by combining the chemicals applied in the process. The STM, on the other hand, is designed to optimize the use and efficiency of these chemicals by ensuring the application and absorption of the right volume and solution for the seeds.

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Posted on November 23rd, 2008 under Technology. Tags: Pest, Seeds, Technology. Comments: None

The 2007 Aquatic Technology Competition yielded a rich harvest of technologies that could be commercialized. The competition, which is in its third year, is a brainchild of Dr Rafael D. Guerrero III and his colleagues at the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development. It is being implemented under the auspices of the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Systems.

A team of young engineers garnered the top prize of P150,000 cash for their underwater robot. The robot called Angel One was developed by Roboteknik headed by Michael Poblete, a youthful mechanical engineering graduate of Mapua Institute of Technology. He describes Angel One as an underwater robot with a video camera and propulsion system. Its primary function is to conduct visual inspection of underwater objects and structures.

In aquaculture, the robot can be used to monitor the fish inside the fishpen, their rate of growth using optional scaling lasers, and feed consumption by measuring the amount of falling feed in the bottom of the fishpen. It could be used to spot holes or breaks in the net where high-value fish could escape.

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Posted on October 20th, 2008 under Aquaculture, Technology. Tags: Bangus, Disease, Seaweed, Tilapia. Comments: None

In the Philippines, technology transfer falls significantly on the shoulders of technicians of local government units. They are expected o perform multiple functions. However; due to limited resources and concrete programs within the local government unit, these technicians failed to serve efficiently.

On one hand, there are technicians who are industrious, innovative, and practice what they teach. They are more effective in transferring technologies and effecting changes in their clients or their recommendations are based on experience. They also effectively ink farmers to the support service and even help market farm produce.

One of them is Marlyn Lilagan, an agricultural livestock technician who has spent almost three decades assisting and extending information to farmers Balungao, Pangasinan. A significant part of the success of this fifth class municipality in eastern Pangasinan in, goat raising is attributed to her and to the support of LGU.

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Posted on October 18th, 2008 under Livestock, Technology. Tags: Goat, Technology. Comments: None

Not every technology from better developed countries works well under Philippine conditions. For instance, the 5 meter x 5 meter distance of planting mangoes that was introduced from Israel was adopted in a hurry by many mango growers, including owners of large plantations. Some new growers are also using this technology.

In our travel around the country, we have seen that indeed the technology is not suitable under local conditions because the canopy of our mango varieties is spreading and the trees grow tall. The branches of many trees are already overlapping after only a few years. Experts say that mutual shading of the branches would render them practically useless as these would not flower and produce fruits.

We can only guess that two things will most likely happen. Mango growers who used this technology will have to prune heavily or probably cut down half of their trees to avoid mutual shading of the branches. This would mean that the grower will lose half of his investment in terms of finances and time.
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Posted on October 18th, 2008 under Fruits, Technology. Tags: Mango. Comments: None

The Central Visayas Region has the most number of livestock produced through Artificial Insemination(AI), the technology on depositing sperm usually of purebred or genetically upgraded male animal into the reproductive organ of the female animal.

According to the Bureau of Animal Industry, about 42 percent of the 15,687 AI offspring in the country during the 2006-2007 period were produced in the region. Common breeds used in the Al program were Simbra, Holstein, Brahman and Sahiwal for cattle, and Murrah and Bulgarian for carabao.

However, promoting the Al technology in the region had been not easy, said Rudito Mumar, regional Al coordinator. Most of the raisers initially feared that their female native animals might have difficulty delivering a big fetus. But this belief is unfounded because unborn animal adjusts to the size of the womb, just like what happens in humans.
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Posted on October 15th, 2008 under Technology. Tags: Artificial Insemination. Comments: None

Save as much as P11,000 every day with MACS biomass furnace, an alternative source of energy used in fueling the mechanical dryer that is used in drying grains especially during the rainy season.

Designed by Dr. Manolito C. Bulaong of the Postharvest Engineering Department (PHED) of the Bureau of Postharvest Research and Extension (BPRE) for its Maize Aflatoxin Control System (MACS) project, the biomass furnace is cheaper to use than the diesel burner in heating the mechanical dryer.

Unlike the diesel burner which consumes 20 liters of diesel per hour at 85°C drying air temperature, the furnace utilizes both rice hull and corncobs as fuel. It has boiler tubes with a diameter of 2.5 inches which serve as heat exchanger and this produces a clean, smoke-free hot air. Its drying time ranges from 6 to 8 hours per batch at an initial moisture content ranging from 24 to 31 percent.
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Posted on October 11th, 2008 under Technology. Tags: Biomass, Dryer, Technology. Comments: None