Agriculture Business Week

It will not come as a surprise if the whole Bantayan Island near the northern tip of Cebu province will be energized soon by the Wellisa Farms using chicken manure as energy source. Poultry and hog farms, including those of Wellisa Farms, do the landscape of Bantayan Island, which is composed of Sta. Fe, Madridejos and Bantayan.

It is now evident that Wellisa Farms, which is owned by Wellington Chanlim, is already moving towards energizing its farms as it continues to expand its operations. Its hog farms in the Island are already energized with electric power generated by biogas digesters. Water from the hog manure is recycled and used for washing the pigs as well as their pigpens. Through its biogas digesters, Wellisa Farms saves a lot of money in its operation.

It should be recalled that Wellisa Farms was the first agribusiness venture in the Country that received the Green-E Award last year because of the biogas project in its poultry and hog farm in Consolacion, Cebu. The energy generated by the biogas digester is used for the manufacture of egg trays.

Wellisa Farms is a franchisee of Novatech Agri-Food Industries for the manufacture of bio-organic fertilizer Durabloom, which is now widely distributed in the Visayas and Mindanao. It also processes the sludge or solid waste from the biogas digesters into bioorganic fertilizer.

For a start, Wellisa Farms expanded its operations two years ago with the establishment of a swine breeder farm, using 250 head of ACMC breed. ACMC is the emerging leader in pig husbandry in the United Kingdom today and Wellisa Farms is the only ACMC parent stock producer in the Philippines. The breeder stock, technically called grandparent stock, produces parent stocks that are sold at a farm gate price of P14,500 each. With an average litter of 14, one could imagine the huge amount of manure generated everyday.

As part of its expansion activities, the machines in its feedmill were replaced last year with state-of-the-art equipment so Wellisa Farms would have sufficient stock of feeds for its poultry layers and hogs. This is in preparation for further expansion of its poultry and hog farms.

Next, Wellington is improving his poultry houses with the use of MetalPlast roofing for durability and better aeration. The bottom of the poultry pens was also cemented for easier and faster collection of raw chicken manure every other day. Thus, he would not anymore worry about the emission of deadly gases like ammonia and sulfide that may cause morbidity and mortality in his stocks.

At the same time, he has increased his processing sheds from four to 12 for the manufacture of Durabloom, since more chicken manure and sludge are collected.

As if these expansions are not yet enough, he is also putting up another swine breeder farm.

Now under construction, the new breeder farm has four biogas digesters with a capacity of 150 cubic meters (cu. m.) each. These could produce a total of 4,000 bags of solid waste every month which can be processed into bio-organic fertilizer Durabloom.

Wellington said the digesters will be fitted with a biogas engine from China that can generate 30 kilowatts (kW) of energy, which can support the power requirement of the new breeder farm plus an ice plant with a capacity of 3.5 metric tons a day. The ice plant will also be established at the site of the new breeder farm. If everything goes well, the new project will be operational by end of the year.

Wellington estimates that the investment cost for the biogas engine and ice plant could 61 fully recovered in two years. It appears that another Green-E Award is forthcoming.

But this is just the beginning. It appears that Wellisa Farms is only testing the waters, so to speak. If this venture proves successful, chances are great that Wellisa Farms will move towards energizing the whole Bantayan Island with poultry and hog manure.

In poultry alone, the Island has at least two million layers at any time, which can excrete a total of 200,000 kilograms (kg) of raw chicken manure everyday. When used as an energy source, this amount of chicken manure can generate 2 megawatts (MW) of energy, which is more than enough for the power requirements of the three towns. Hog manure can provide additional energy.

According to Wellington, the power requirement of Bantayan Island is 1.1 to 1.2 MW during off-peak period and 1.7 MW during peak period. The Island at present is energized by a power barge that uses bunker fuel. Thus, power generation with poultry and hog manure as energy sources could save the country from spending a huge amount of foreign exchange for bunker fuel.

Besides energy generation, a huge amount of solid waste for bio-organic fertilizer processing will also be generated. It’s like hitting two big birds with only one stone.