Mechanization enables P50 to become P5,000

A FARMER can plant soy seeds worth P50 a kilo.

In only three months, he can get a return of P10,950: P5,000 in cash and P5,950 in non-cash benefits.

I personally saw this when I visited Leyte a few months after the Yolanda disaster.

Rosemarie Aquino (0915-4622438), Chair of the Technical Working Group of the Department of Agriculture (DA)’s National Soybean Program, explained how this works.

A farmer has to spend P50 to buy a kilo of certified soy seeds.

In three months, this will yield an average of 25 kilos. Without mechanization, he can sell this to a market vendor for P30 a kilo. This will give him a P750 return.

But with mechanization such as an electrically-charged osterizer, the beans can instead be processed into 200 liters of soy milk worth P9,200.

In addition, the solid residue can be transformed into 12.5 kilos of processed soy veggie meat worth P1,750.

After Yolanda, I introduced this very promising enterprise to Sister Eloisa David (0917-8532775), who heads the Agriculture and Rural Alternative Options Foundation in Tacloban, Leyte.

She was very excited to try it.

At that time, people had little food. Knowing the high nutrition value of soy, she embarked on a soybean production program.

One year later, I returned to Leyte to see if the P50 investment actually resulted in P10,950 in three months.

It was not what I expected.

The cash received was only P5,000, less than half of the promised return. The reason was simple.

The processed soy veggie meat was given away by the farmer with no cash return, as was almost half of the soy milk.

The actual cash generated was P5,000.

But if the non-cash value of the produce given away was included, the yield would reach P10,950.

Last Jan. 27, I attended Sister Eloisa’s inauguration of a P400,000 soy processing machine donated by DA’s Philippine Center for Post-harvest Development and Mechanization (Philmech) headed by Director Rex Bingabing (0921-9987775).

Attending this inauguration were government officials headed by Leyte Governor Leopoldo Domino Petilla and several private sector organizations.

They all pledged full support for the soy bean production on a large-scale started by Sister Eloisa.

The ready market for this milk would be the Department of Education feeding program, which currently imports non-organic powdered milk at a cost higher than Sister Eloisa’s organic soy milk.

During this inauguration, I asked Sister Eloisa if the farmer’s micro soy enterprise had been extensively replicated.

She said that other priorities had prevented her from doing this.

On the spot, she appointed Flora Teves, a returning volunteer from Michigan, to take this on as her sole assignment in the larger soy development program.

I then asked Sister Eloisa how this micro soy program could be duplicated in remote areas without any electricity to process the milk. This was when I found out that Philmech had changed its direction under Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala.

Bingabing said that Philmech has a new thrust going beyond inventing their own machines.

It now looked at other measures on how the mechanization they sponsored improved the farmers’ welfare.

Therefore, instead of measuring their performance on just the number of machines Philmech invented and distributed, they measured how many people’s lives they improved.

They also look at how many in the private sector copy and distribute their machines (adoptors), as well as identifying other useful machines currently in the market but hardly known.

They then promote these machines, even though they are not Philmech’s, to small farmers.

In this particular case, Philmech found a P1,400 processing machine that did not need any electricity to process the soy beans.

Unfortunately, aside from Sister Eloisa’s organization, Bingabing did not know of any other group using these machines for soy processing.

Philmech is an untapped rich resource.

It should be given much wider exposure and promotion, especially with its new emphasis.

Its findings should be systematically known to the 17,000 agriculture extension workers who now report to the mayors, instead of the DA because of the Decentralization Law.

It is a sad indicator that this very beneficial soybean activity of processing a P50 soy seed investment resulting in at least P5,000 in cash and another P5,950 in non-cash benefits has not yet been adopted in poor municipalities throughout the country.

It is this kind of mechanization advocated by Philmech that is necessary to increase farmer incomes and achieve inclusive growth.

(The author is Chair of Agriwatch, former Secretary for Presidential Flagship Programs and Projects, and former Undersecretary for Agriculture, Trade and Industry. For inquiries and suggestions, email [email protected] or telefax (02) 852-2112).