Engineers for Excellence Webinar Series - Episode 3

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[Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning everyone i am jill ramos from manila water foundation and i will be your host for today in partnership with the department of science and technology and the philippine technological council manila water foundation welcomes you to the engineers for excellence webinar series at this point i would like to greet all of our participants from dosd and ptc and their affiliate offices and organizations likewise a great morning to all of the participants who are currently viewing our live feed on the engineers for excellence facebook group and mwf's facebook and youtube pages and we are so glad to be able to reach the entire philippines with viewers from cebu sultan kudarat and sorsagon we even have viewers from singapore doha and kanagawa in japan thank you so much for joining us this morning this three-part series aims to highlight the valuable contributions of filipino engineers in our nation's fight against the covid19 pandemic throughout the webinar series we feature the awardees of the manila water foundation prize for engineering excellence and their projects with the hope of encouraging more engineers and innovators to venture into research and development make their technologies accessible to the greater public and contribute to engineering solutions to society's problems today we are in our third and final episode where we will focus on the theme engineers as entrepreneurs supporting backliners our invited speakers for today are here to share their projects with the with which help our farmers in improving their farm processes and ensure food security for the whole country but before we go into that we are honored to be graced with the presence of no less than the president of the philippine technological council who will give the welcome remarks for today please welcome engineer federico monsada hello uh good morning good morning to all of you this is the third edition episode of the and i think it's the last episode of the mwf featuring several of our awardees in the past few years and perhaps i would like to speak about the the trends that are ongoing right now in the international scene of which ptc is involved because this will in fact highlight the things that we are doing at mwf excellence in engineering award in the last few weeks ptc has been involved with the review of the future of engineering and one of the major items that was discussed there was on inclusiveness and diversity and i believe that these are the two main features of the works of our awardees today they have been very inclusive in their works even if there is a significant diversity in the communities that they are working with and i'm very happy that i've been invited to make this opening remarks because i believe that our engineers many if not a lot of our engineers are there working not only for our for their own families but they are working for the community as well as the nation and i'm very happy that mwf of course together with ptc and dost have been pursuing this program of giving recognition to our engineers who have made a significant mark on the lives of people especially those who are at the lowest bottom of our society and it is for this reason that ptc has been supporting this program so with in behalf of all the members 13 members of the philippine technological council the council officers executive officers of bpc and all the engineers who have been involved with btc especially in the area of recognition international as well as local recognition we are very very happy that again the fourth run of the mwf prize for engineering excellence is about to be launched and please take note that launching of this program will be right at the time when we will be celebrating the world engineering day for sustainable development so i uh encourage all uh engineers engineering professionals all over the country to look around you look around you and see those engineers and scientists who have been doing services for the community and make sure that they will be known for what they have done because it is very important especially for our youth that they will see that engineers are the builders engineers are the makers engineers are the implementers of ideas that will definitely improve the lives of our people so with this i would like to welcome all of you to this third webinar on the lives and the works of our awardees and of course thank you very much to mwf for this opportunity to speak to our people and uh i i heard jill about it uh it being a national in scope and even international i know there are many engineers in singapore in malaysia in especially in the middle east if you are listening my friends especially those who are there singapore middle east australia new zealand thank you very much as well for listening for following mwf price for engineering excellence make it happen my friends uh we invite all of you to nominate your candidates for the next run the fourth run of the mwf prize for engineering excellence with that thank you and welcome to all of you to this webinar thank you very much thank you so much engineer monsade it truly is a great honor to have you here today and we really truly appreciate the support that ptc has been giving us all through these years to the mwaf prize for engineering excellence and you are absolutely correct engineers really are the builders the makers and the implementers of ideas that improve the lives of people so without further ado let me introduce to you our first speaker for today he is one of the lone awardee of the prizes of the prize in 2017 he is an agricultural engineer by profession and is a scientist too and the program leader for create rice program of the philippine rice research institute among his major r d projects is the continuous type rice hull carbonizer which helps farmers convert farm waste such as rice hall and rice straw into biochar which can be used as a soil conditioner for their farms to help improve the quality and yield of their produce through this project he and his team in fill rights was also able to give an alternative livelihood option to rice farmers in nueva esiya and gulakan that uses the machine in mushroom production aside from being an awardee of the prize he is also among the 2019 presidential lincoln bayan national winner and was recognized as an outstanding agricultural engineer in various recognition bodies in the country ladies and gentlemen please welcome our first speaker for today dr ricardo f orge thank you very much jill for that kind and generous introduction hello everyone good morning first of all i would like to thank the manali water foundation and its partners the philippine technological council and the department of science and technology for inviting me as one of the resource persons for this webinar series the title of my presentation is technologies for the new normal helping smallholder farmers face challenging times i am from the philippine rice research institute or phil rice a government agency attached to the department of agriculture at field rice we develop technologies to improve farming practices so our farmers can produce enough food for all of us filipinos next slide please so um we are now in a situation which we call new normal because of this covet endemic there are a lot of things what that we do now which we don't normally do in the past it is normal to be wearing masks in public places it also it is also normal to see a uniform personnel pointing out what looks like a gun on someone's forehead in the entrances of malls groceries stores and other public places so uh why because we need to respond to crisis or uncertainties next slide please so um in times like this our normal response is to secure food we want to ensure that there is enough food for our family for the next days or weeks to come we want to be sure that our children will not go to bed with empty stomach we want to be sure that we survive and recover from this crisis next slide please so uh one of the technologies or farming practice that proves its usefulness in trying times like palayamanan is a diversified and integrated rice based farming system wherein aside from production other activities like vegetable production aquaculture the racing of chickens livestock production among others are also integrated this is to diversify investment and sources of income maximize use of land ensure household and nutrition security palyman was originally developed by field rice for farmers in marginal areas so that farmers can have other sources of income aside from rice production so now it has evolved into a farming strategy that can help farmers enhance their resilience to extreme climate events or crisis like the kovid pandemic we are experiencing right now wind luzon was put under enhanced community quarantine field rise in collaboration with its partners launched the pagahon project in support of the plant plant plant program of the department of agriculture means nutrition which is basically anchored on the concept of balayam next slide please so um okay in polyamon um the use of by-products is maximized for example rice hal which is a bribe by-product of rice production is processed into by charcoal which we call here as biochar which is widely used as soil conditioner there are a lot of benefits that biochar can give which i will later on uh expound it is also used as bedding material for poultry and livestock so a thick layer of rice hull by by char serves as a carpet on the floor of big pants which absorbs urine and facilitates the collection of manure it also suppresses odor and once saturated with figurine the dispatch biochar is removed and then replaced with another batch the remove batch is then applied in vegetable gardens soil condition conditioner wherein it also helps improve the fertility of the soil next uh slide piece so uh biochar is simply a charcoal that is produced with the intention of putting it back to the soil it is globally recognized as a simple but powerful tool to address some of the world's urgent environmental problems the carbon in biochar is degradation and can hold carbon in soils for hundreds to thousands of years so biochar and bioenergy co-production can help combat global warming by displacing fossil fuel use and by sequestering carbon in stable carbon pools it may also reduce emissions of nitrous oxide biochar can be an important tool to increase food security and crop plant diversity in areas with severely depleted soils and adequate water and chemical fertilizer supplies biochar also improves water quality and quantity by increasing soil retention of nutrients and agrochemicals to plant and crop utilization more nutrients stay in the soil instead of leaching into the ground and causing pollution so these are just some of the benefits with which we can get from the use of biochar next slide please okay so in short bioshoot biochar helps in keeping the soil healthy it can be equated to the coral reefs in the oceans which provide a good environment for the fishes to grow and multiply in short it is an indicator of a healthy ocean in the same manner biochar when when observed under a microscope contains a lot of rooms conducive for the growth of beneficial organisms that helps improves the condition and fertility of the soil next slide please okay these learnings about the biochar particularly its role in making crop production among others pushed me to develop an improved system of producing biochar from rice hall it has no moving parts and does not require electricity to operate that's very much applicable even and off grid areas the traditional practice is batch type produces a lot of smoke and the generated heat is just wasted i never realized this would lead me to the 2017 mwf price for engineering excellence mwef mwf and its partners the ptc and ddost next slide please okay together with my research team we are still doing some research on the various uses of the heat generated by the carbonizer some of the uses of the carbonizer you can see in the screen are proof of concepts which were done because there were interested users who wanted to try some of the recovery heat for specific applications for example a farmer in kuyapu nueve approached me years ago and asked if it's possible and feasible to use the carbonizer to provide supplemental heat in his poultry house supplemental heat is needed during the first two weeks of growth of the chickens or cheeks thus we tried to replace the lpg fuel burners and found that it worked uh on the other hand for the production of the production of coco sugar is another story so um this picture was uh taken in allahabad the one that is used for coco sugar production this one was taken in uh alaba queso hopefully by next year or years when things get back to normal we can try any or all of these innovations in a farmers cooperative as part of their income generating activities while also subjecting these innovations under actual operating conditions just yesterday we were testing a new carbonizer attachment that makes use of the heat and we were quite successful in making use of this heat in pumping water the result was really very promising next slide please so among these hit recovery attachments the most popular one is the one used in mushroom production these are now being used by at least i think six or uh six farm farmer cooperatives next slide please okay mushroom production is a typical component of the mana and for us to appreciate the role of the carbonizer in providing income observed opportunities for farmers through mushroom production let me explain in detail using this slide so in rice production um we produce byproducts like like rice hal and rice straw and they are very useful in rice mushroom production these rice hulls are processed into biochar using the carbonizer while the straws are also used as substrates for growing oyster mushrooms the rice straws are chopped and then placed in plastic bags which we call as mushroom floating bags these mustard floating bags are pasteurized to kill the organisms present so as to ensure that only the mushroom spawn will grow the fruiting bugs the pasteurization process makes use of the heat generated during the carbon carbonization process this model creates a lot of business opportunities as you can see we farmers can sell the fruiting bugs or sell sell the grown mushrooms or they can process the mushrooms into something that is that are of higher value okay next slide please okay let's talk uh about my experience during the time when we were under ecq uh during the lockdown period we were raising vegetable seedlings in support of the pagan project i have mentioned that the pagan project was in support of the da's plant plant plant program part of my team's contribution was to produce biochar to be mixed with soil as growing medium for the vegetable seedlings then we realized that oh we didn't have enough supply of rice hal we normally uh purchase this rice house from the rice mills nearby but this also were closed during the uh lockdown but inside field rice campus and even the backyards of most housing units there were a lot of biomass waste which were unusually utilized so i thought of uh utilizing them but unfortunately at that time the carbon carbonizer was not prepared for for this kind of biomass although uh before we were we made some initial trials but we and we noticed that this carbonizer has some potentials for processing uh biochar from from other biomass sources so i i felt the need to further came up with a much simpler uh design of the the carbonizer next slide please so these are just uh examples of the bios mass waste that are commonly found in the backyards okay although in the past we have tried using the carbon ice and carbonizing uh way by smart waste like corn calves peanut shells but we failed to try this kind of biomass so um thus that lead me to a new design of the carbonizer which my team developed during the covet lockdown next slide please so during those times uh we my team did a lot of revisions and then we came up with a new model of the carbonizer which is much simpler in design much easier to fabricate and of course much cheaper so the previous one is made of 100 metal but this time we may it is made use of it made use of ninety percent uh ninety-eight percent feral cement first cement is just concrete uh re reinforced with a wire screen uh of course there are some parts that are made of metal so with this um the cost had been drastically reduced imagine for the metal model the one at the left for the carbonizer plus its uh attachment cooking attachment that costed around forty thousand uh maybe around three three years ago or three to five years ago but uh the one on the left i think it depends on the price of cement and the screen you can fabricate that maybe around five thousand to ten thousand next slide please so this is my dream this is my dream i still dream that and i hope this will happen in the future in the near future with the new and much simpler design of the i call it covid carbonizer carbonizer for biomass discards we'll just call it copic carbonizer and not just kobe to avoid confusion with this new design it may be possible for each household especially in rural areas to have this for use in managing their solid waste biomass waste with this each household in a community can have their own regular supply of biochar for sustainable gardening among others as well as heat a source a source of energy for various income generating activities next slide please now let's go back to my second slide going back the new normal with a big question mark eventually the vaccine will come and this pandemic will already be a thing of the past this means that the new normal brought by the kovic 19 pandemic is just temporary it will not last long the wearing of masks in public places will no longer be required and no longer be no longer be a thing to do the pointing of thermal gun the forehead would perhaps irritate most people since it will no longer be part of the basic protocol when we enter an establishment next slide please the real new normal is climate change according to the experts this will we will be experiencing strong typhoons not only now not only in the past but still in the future the uh the intensity the drought will uh will we we will be experiencing more extreme drought the rainfall would be more variable farmers could no longer uh make use of their planting calendars there is rise in temperature this rise in sea water level that's what the experts uh tell us and we should be prepared for this i included the rice in seawater level because most of our rice farms are situated in coastal areas and with this it would be possible that the the soil where in this rice fields that are in coastal areas will be affected by salt water next slide please according to the report of the world bank in 28 2013 13 the poor who have had very little to do with causing global warming or climate change will suffer the most and most of our farmers particularly smallholders are the ones affected next slide please please when i visited my hometown in late merida late i realized how devastating typhoon yolanda was it was already six months after the typhoon hit the province when i visited the place but i still noticed a lot of houses unrepaired i had the impression the problem is not more on money since these houses are originally good looking and most of them have parked cars in the garage then later i learned that there was shortage of carpenter during the recovery period where in each household has the same need of carpenter to repair their house so this led me to the concept of cuevo it's a term derived from two words cueva and kubo kubo is a multi-purpose farm structure designed to have a structural integrity of a cave or cueva to make it typhoon resistant yet easy to construct like like a baha'i kubo so that even farmers and those in their communities can be capacitated to construct the structure by themselves in order to simplify its method construction it makes use of prefabricated parts and construction aids we call these as pre-fabricated parts or as basic construction uh units the ones you see in the picture that forms the skeletal framework of the structure uh these are the uh bcus the basic construction units uh i'm referring to the bcu can be equated to a hollow block which when joined together forms the wall or the gi sheets which when joined together forms the roof of a building but a bcu is more than a hollow block or a gi sheet since it can carry a load in this case we use bamboo and wire screen as reinforcement for the bcu the unit you can see in this slide is the one that established at the futurized form of field rise here at munoz nueva and is being used as shelter of body dryer and storage of palais next slide please okay uh this one we by uh we piloted i tested the technology in a farmer's association in mayamut saragosa this structure this structure was built by most of the members of the association with few hard workers its construction was completed i think in the early part of this year and this was subjected naturally by typhoon ulysses at that time university was uh under signal number three uh fortunately it survived even after a large broken branch of mango he a mango tree hit it uh the one that damaged uh was the the the vortex the blue one at the top which serves as a ventilator it's made of rgi so um we are still in the process of establishing the carbonizer the copic carbonizer for this mushroom production project now while we are still under pandemic situation most of the members of this association have rice fields that are oftentimes flooded during rainy seasons so they could only plant rice once a year hence the mushroom production serves as their alternative source of income during rainies during rainy season next slide please okay that's for the strong typhoons now we talk upstream drought another challenge which the farmers are facing due to climate change is extreme drought or illness you are in during these conditions the supply water for irrigation is very limited in conditions like this we normally advise farmers not to plant rice since it is already very risky and they might get might lost their initial investments but instead advise them to plant short duration crops which can easily be converted into cars and this is where the idea of the capillary irrigation or we call it capillary irrigation system evolved there is already there are already efficient irrigation systems available in the market like the micro micro sprinklers and the drip irrigation systems but these as technologies are costly and far beyond the financial reach of the smallholder farmers the capillary irrigation system is a do-it-yourself type irrigation technology which can be made using local materials some these materials can be found inside the house it or in the backyard it can be considered as a variant of drip irrigation system wherein it makes use of capillary wicks and capillary action as means of dispensing water similar to the function of an emitter in the drip irrigation system the principle of operation is very simple all we have to do is establish a stable supply of water which could be a pipe provided with holes or a narrow canal where we can put the capillary wicks in this setup we made use of tarpoolin which were formed into u-shape to simulate a canal with closed ends so as to be able to hold water then we place the wicks at certain spacing based on the uh desired plant planting distance of the crop for the weeks we made use of cotton strands normally used in mapping floors used t-shirts made of 100 cotton cut into 25 or one inch wide strips can be also be made into capillary weeds if you notice in this picture we covered the weeks with drinking straws these are recycled drinking straws so as to minimize water evaporation as the wicks are exposed to the heat of the sun once you have established the system in your garden the guardian would be would operate on its own in other words the system makes your garden self-watering as long as there are still water at the time in our field trials it appeared that the capital irrigation system is more efficient than the drip as reflected in the value for the water use efficiency which means that for every liter of irrigation water water applied we get a yield of 36.6 kilogram as compared to only 9.9 kilogram of the drip irrigation system this data were derived from actual field test using green pepper as our test graph next slide please so um this is this is also one of the outputs during the lock down time we developed this uh do it yourself guide on how to install the computer irrigation system in a backyard garden this is still subject for review and improvement but for those who who can't wait to try it you may ask a copy of it and i'll consider it as a pilot test please provide me your feedback later on next slide please okay this is still a proof of concept we have proven that we can grow pigs even with these miniaturized pig pens with this design and confident that can already withstand strong typhoons the roof actually is a self-watering garden where we establish the capillary irrigation system so the garden with the growing plants in this case plant cancun insulates the pigs from the heat of the sun in addition the soil which is mixed with biochar is maintained moist by the capillarization system which keeps the temperature inside the pigment low there uh load through evaporative cooling the pig pen can be constructed using the same principle as cuevo in this case we made use of prefabricated panels made of concrete and reinforced with bamboo splits and wire screen next slide please the uh this is the succlob you call it we call it's a clove this is a technology for storing potty seeds so as to ensure the quality of the seeds and that the seedless still the germinated attack at the time they are needed this was actually developed in the early 2000s during the time when uh the hybrid rice was first commercialized nationwide through the hybrid rice commercialization program of the government this is a local version of an israeli technology which operates by simply keeping the seeds in a hermetic hermetic or gas tight container so that the outside air could not influence the condition of the seeds stored inside this container this means that as long as the properly dried seeds are kept inside this container they will remain dry even when stored during periods of continuous rain wherein the surrounding air is humid moreover there are seeds since the seeds respire they take in oxygen in the air inside the container if the seeds are infested with wee bells weavers also take in oxygen as they breathe so there comes a time when the oxygen content of the air inside the cyclone is depleted this consists this condition is favorable for the seeds but not for the reveals the weebles will eventually die as the oxygen level lowers down next slide please perhaps you already have uh you already know the the rcep or heard the rcep or the rice competitiveness enhancement but uh fun this is where the cyclops we planned this occlude to use this globe uh phil philrice is involved in this uh program being the one implementing the seed component of ourself we are in charge in the procurement and distribution of the seeds so that even during lockdown the distribution of seeds were continued we are anticipating that there could be excess seeds that need to be stored so that they can still be used in the next planting season this is where saklo plays an important role okay so next slide please so for my concluding remarks farmers especially the whole smallholder ones are facing a lot of challenges and technologies alone are not enough to solve the the problems which they are facing they need more help likewise the agricultural sector as a whole needs your help our support and each one of us has the capacity to contribute the least we can do is to be next slide please responsible and your papa pillow has already done his part don't waste rice you may recite the panatang makapalay the copy of which is available in the internet and from there you will have an idea of how how not to waste a rice i hope everybody would recite it seriously the next slide is a video which i hope all of us should certainly seriously get the message please play the video so so that ends my presentation my email address is shown for those who want to know more details about the technologies i was presenting for concerns about for more uh for other concerns uh i have here the email address of phil rice and the web field rise website uh i recommend you visit this our site we we can learn a lot of things and for urgent concerns we have the phil rice tech center concerns about rice farming and our experts are ready to answer your questions within one hour thank you very much thank you very much dr orge for that very informative and educational presentation uh truly you were very ins you were so inspiring dr jorge because i've learned that with all your innovations such as the colbit carbonizer the cuevo the capillary irrigation system in the cyclone we need to continue innovating and improving our technologies to help our farmers who who feed us no and of course because we our experts have predicted that climate change will will only get worse this is so important and what's so nice about your presentation is that not only are we called to improve our technologies but we can do our own little share in helping our farmers by being rice responsible ayan so before we proceed to our second and last speaker for today may i please remind our viewers to send their questions to our speakers through the comment section of this broadcast either on the engineers for excellence facebook group or mwf's facebook or youtube pages our panel will answer your queries right after the presentation of our last speaker to move on with our program let me introduce our second and final speaker for today's webinar he is also among the four awardees of the 2019 edition of the prize and is also an agricultural engineer by profession he is a supervising science research specialist with the rank of scientists too at the philippine center for post-harvest development and mechanization or philnek of the department of agriculture he finished bachelor of science in agriculture agricultural engineering at isabella state university masters and doctorate degrees major in agricultural economics at chiba university that was that's in japan and under the japanese uh it was under the japanese scholarship program he was also a recipient of the newton leaders in innovation fellowship under the dosd and british royal academy of engineering in 2015. aside from his awards his works are the better way to appreciate his ingenuity while most innovators are aspirational and aims to make high-end version of the contemporary technology he uses innovations to make the new type of cornmeal and rice mill machines more accessible efficient and affordable to the filipino farmers the micro mill for brown rice for example allows farmers even with land holding of only one hectare to viably own a rice mill for an investment less than the price of a carabao imagine that so these technologies give the farmers the chance to process and market their own produce for value adding activities ladies and gentlemen please welcome dr michael a gragassi thank you for that kind introduction is good morning it is indeed a great privilege and honor to be one of the speakers of the webinar series of the manila water foundation with the team in this third episode engineers supporting backliners may i pose and ask who are the backliners in this time of pandemic according to the chief of qcbrmo mike marasigan as reported by the philippine daily inquirer backliners are those people working behind the front liners i'm sading anya the balm pagoda acting frontliners i totally agree with miss marasigan ensuring the availability of food during our battle against kobe 19 virus is very important and our filipino farmers have played a vital role in supplying the food requirement of our frontliners and the filipino people in general with the great efforts of ba dti and office of the president the problem is our filipino farmers cry for help as polite prices plants and thus their income based on the philippine statistics authority or psa the average farm gate price of polite during the fourth week of september this year went down to 16.24 pesos per kilogram from 18.36 pesos during the first week of august according to the report of jam cesante caico and gma's 24 hours farmers have begun thinking of leaving the rice fields or selling their land if the buying price of ally will continue to go down based on the latest family income and expenditure survey the average income of farmers in the philippines is around 100 000 pesos a year or just over 8 000 pesos a month which is well below the poverty line how can we make our agriculture sector sustainable if price farming is no longer attracted to some of our marginalized filipino farmers today may i share with you what we are doing in finding solutions to the current economic conditions of our filipino farmers contributions secretary as one of the scientists or engineers at field neck our team develop affordable and appropriate milling machines so that farmers can process their own produce and sell their product in the form of milled rice instead of selling right away their presley harvested palais at very low price why milling machines as we are aware of most of the milling machines in the country are owned or at the hands of rich's great businessman walnut milling machine we all know that are the staple foods of the filipinos and yet the department of agriculture has estimated that the total rice meal deficit in our country is around 23 000 units it is our belief that unless our farmers do not have their own post-harvest facilities like dryers and rice meal it's not easy for them to engage in value-adding activities and sadly it is hard for them to augment their income if there's no other form of economic activities that will be introduced to them one of the inventions that we made in order to help our filipino farmers is the filmmak impeller rice meal please note that the philippines is heavily dependent on imported rice milk machines from japan and to some extent korea taiwan and china unfortunately the design of these rice milk machines are highly favorable for use by grain businessman and not highly conducive for use by the farmers in the countryside for example all of these imported building machines require three-phase electrical line and this type of electrical line is not commonly available in the countryside especially in the remote areas if you will notice most of the rice milling machines are at the hands of private traders and these are mostly situated along the national highway where three-phase electrical line is about available the pilmec impeller rice mill features a new type of color an impeller nut rubber oil to efficiently separate the rice hull from the brown rice this rice milk is compact yet powerful with milling capacity of 300 kilogram per hour the design successfully reduces 60 percent of the space requirement of traditional rice meal most importantly it is capable of producing brown rice even if the palate has moisture content of 10 to 16 percent it's a distinct features not available to traditional rice mill design our operators in webasia negros occidental the pollock city are now buying palais from their members and non-member farmers at higher price than the prevailing market price meal their own produce and sell brown rice at 60 pesos per kilogram doubling or tripling their income in rice farming these farmers cooperatives are now operating their own brown rice pressing enterprise using the pilmec developed impellerized meals in addition to this during the lockdown period and given the street community quarantine restrictions that we observed we assisted them in putting up their online marketing such as inshapi and other available e-market platform in their locality to continue their business operations with this they can easily sell brown rice product and realize earnings of about 9000 pesos per 10 bags of ally transaction this proves that with the proper technology and the provision of appropriate technical and marketing assistance our marginalized farmers or farmers group are capable of operating and managing a rice processing enterprise even in time of adversities like the strict community quarantine restrictions that are being observed in our country the second type of milling machine that we developed in order to help our corn farmers this time is the pillmet compact cornmeal perhaps you may ask why do we need to develop cardboard machine it is sad to know that almost all of kermit machines currently operating in our country already more than 50 years in service lumonglumana and still uses a 1950s kisan technology that features henry stone battle modern rice meals were already introduced in our country but the cornmeal machines being used have not evolved or improved yet please note that the court bill is so important in our country because 50 million filipinos are eating corn grits as their staple food most of which are are are our kabbabayans in visayas and in the now machines comparison 1.75 to 2.50 pesos per kilogram rice millers our formula design features a saginaw screen hauler for the degerminator mechanism instead of using emery stone to improve the quality of corn grits product we introduced ap type rotating blades for its grinding mechanism to improve code grid's product recovery likewise we totally innovate the grading mechanism by introducing three rotating cylinders instead of adapting the oscillating type silver to reduce the power requirement of the machine since its commercialization in 2014 there are now more than 300 units of corn will solve all over the country through our partner in the private sector with total value of 105 million pesos the third type of milling machine that we develop that is geared towards helping our filipino farmers is the micro meal for brown rice may i emphasize that the first two machines were designed for group of farmers while this time this is intended for individual farmers with area of only one hectare this brown rice micro mill with capacity of one bag per per hec per hour is smaller than the size of a tire of suv it can be moved from one place to another electric fan an appliance says nothing this machine has great potential for commercialization because of its superior performance even it is small it is capable of producing brown rice with the head rice recovery of more than 80 percent the milling recovery is high at 77 percent which significantly higher than the average milling recovery of commercial meals for palace rice at six at 64 percent simultaneous pilot testing of this rice meal will be undertaken next year in 10 project farmers project operators in ipogao nueva biscaya aurora talinga and nuebesia to improve its technical performance and social economic acceptability particularly on the ease of operating and conducting repairs and maintenance likewise during this stage we want to develop a business model where an individual farmer can viably operate a brown rice processing enterprise using the microwheel that we developed since one of the major problems of the farmers is marketing we intend to link these farmers to online marketing given the emerging popularity and acceptability of this marketing platform like xiati even in the remote areas in the countryside it is our prayer that this technology will be commercially available in 2022 at a cost of 35 000 vessels the unit price is almost 80 percent cheaper than the hand tractor the most common machine owned by our farmers that costs 150 000 pesos to protect our technologies we initiated the dropping of patent claims and ensured that the intellectual property right defiled at the philippine intellectual property office note that in the ipr the owner of our technologies is still met representing the general public in other words these technologies is ours not us because we are just the inventors of this technology as a strategy we promote and commercialize these technologies through licensing agreement with local manufacturers for the right to fabricate distribute and sell our developed technologies it is important to note that the introduction of modern agricultural machineries from other countries have badly hit our local manufacturing sector that displays some of our inefficient local machineries in the field the timely grant of license to act machineries for example has enabled them to survive and was able to sell more than 200 units of cornmeal with total value of 80 million pesos the introduction of cornwheel in their product line has inspired them to diversify to other agricultural products that lead them to business expansion instead of contraction through our partner local manufacturers our technologies have mod provided additional jobs in the countryside in conclusion our farmers need our assistance through science and technology to enable them to engage in value-adding activities thereby increasing their income the development and commercialization of appropriate milling machines for our farmers is very important for the sustainable development of the country's agriculture the engineering innovations that we have undertaken are very timely in sustaining food availability and source of additional livelihood to our farmers and stakeholders thank you very much together we heal as one thank you so much dr gergassin for your very inspiring presentation indeed we truly have to support our backliners or our farmers through e-commerce and marketing support because we they really need this and also thank you so much dr gargassian for developing efficient and affordable rice and corn meals for them to be able to produce um products that they can earn more income from all right so at this point we will now go to our question and answer portion so we will now bring back in our two speakers to entertain questions from our attendees we will be joined by ptt president engineer fred montad as well and our mwf executive director uh mr reginald andal so hello once again dr gragassian dr jorge engineer monsada and sir reds so hello boys everyone good morning so thank you so much for joining us this morning so we will now take in questions from our audiences so we have been asking them or encouraging them to post their comments or questions on our youtube page on our facebook page as well as the facebook group of engineering excellence all right so as we wait for comments i'd like to ask you this is a question from our manila water family so as a filipino engineer why is it important to develop new technologies for our farmers so maybe doctor or hey you can start yeah um i will answer that within the context of rice rice farming you see um there are great challenges the rising farming industry is facing now one is the coming in of imported rice which are much cheaper than the locally produced rice one is climate change so um technologies really played important role in combating these problems for example for the becoming of the imported rice that are achieved this were produced by farmers from neighboring neighboring countries which are fully uh equipped with new technologies and our local farmers have to to be also be competitive and we need they need also to be uh equipped with with the technologies and most of this can be done by by engineers so uh as we have seen from the presentations of mike these are the technologies that can help the farmers uh improve or add value to their to their produce that's all thank you thank you dr organo so that's important adding value to their produce because this will surely increase their incomes which really our farmers need especially during this time of the pandemic so dr gragassian you can answer that question same question yeah i am a son of a part-time farmer in isabella and i personally witnessed how small the income derived in vice farming especially that a rice field is highly dependent on rhine on rainfall during that time i do believe that developing appropriate technologies portable milling technologies will make the difference in giving our farmers hope and the opportunity to process their own produce and negotiate for a higher price for their farm output and i think this will help them increase their income thank you so much dr gargasin um do you have anything else to say paul uh all right okay so nakakata and thereby giving them more income to feed their families and to support their their children's education and other needs that they may have i and so thank you so much thank you so again we are entertaining questions from our audiences from facebook and from youtube and some comments so here's one from mr ali molina from our youtube channel sirs our carbonizer and rice mill machines available in the market and are they affordable for farmers so unai in colombo see dr jorge since the carbonizer was mentioned first the new model because carbonizer for buy must discards we plan to make it uh open source uh i just uh i'll just get an official um approval from the management but i already have uh initial feedback from them so the plan is we will prepare the guide in constructing this the carbonizer car carbonizer and as of now of course there are no available units you can get in the market uh they're still in the process of making this an open source i think carbonizer very witty uh name po doctor or so okay dr gargasse same question yes machines we always uh grant license or partner this with our local manufacturers at available nasa market they are now supplying uh these machines but you can contact them at magdeb and passenger our local manufacturers were given the right to fabricate distribute and sell this technology uh we always in contact with them to ensure that in performance nadine designer men i at the same time we always monitor them param ensuring quality and the provision of after sales service capacity yeah and so thank you so much dr gragassi no so as he said these machines are available at the market you can actually um directly go to the local manufacturers which they have granted licenses to so that they can manufacture fabricate and sell these machines so kai engineer monsadaputyo ayan so as part and head of ptc what do you wish to see in our future engineers again uh engineer monsada your mic is on youtube ayan yeah they are there are many things that i would like to see in our future engineers and of course i i just would like to relate this immediately to the two uh awardees uh to dr argue and to dr gragosti i myself my family has always been a has always been a farmer family and up to the time that i was in college even today i still go to the farm and i think our our land area is less than one one hectare so we are my my father is a a tenant and i think one of the one of the things that i would like to see in our engineers is really uh focusing well they should have that global global perspective but focusing on the local needs you know especially because you should we should understand that uh there's a big proportion of our population who are you know at that uh like and i think most of them are in the in the farmer's sector farming sector like for me when i was in college or even in high school and elementary you know we if we don't properly treat our produce like camatis [Music] and i think these ideas that our excellence awardees are you know pushing they're creating they're making it happen this is very very important for all of us before the pandemic or probably i think it was march you know there were a big you know amount of tomatillo that were dumped no somewhere in the north tomato and onions so if i will look at future engineers i would like to see engineers like those no taking care of these things in these are seasonal but so maybe we should take care of those and i'm very happy uh dr august uh talked about that hermetic uh you know uh hermetic thing about making sure that the the rice the seeds are there protected i'm also very happy that dr gragassi was talking about this experience it and make sure that it is safe for the rest of the year but again all of these things will be tingled i'm very happy that there are engineers of the kind of doctor organ doctor so that they will make the technology open source very good very good actually because we have a small farm my my nephew is working on it and i think one of the i know internationally in the last six months it is ongoing in fact i'm supposed to submit december 5 my last comment our last comment ptc's comment on the proposed changes in the expected graduate attributes of engineers and during my open remarks i said number one the engineers must have a ocean of inclusiveness inclusiveness and number two we must have a very good understanding of diversity that we all exist in a very diverse environment sometimes very small groups have interest they have this they have that and we should as engineers must consider this in our works in designing products in designing processes in designing systems in designing you know equipment and machineries so that's that's my my long answer thank you thank you engineer monsanta no so truly we need to raise more young engineers to be like dr orr and dr gregasi who can really support our farmers who belong to the vulnerable sector of society so thank you so much for that engineer monsada so for mr andal of mwf why is it important to support engineers like dr jorge and dr gragassi thank you jill for that question manila water foundation core advocacy and vision mission is to enable change through sustainable intervention for the marginalized communities in the philippines and we are very fortunate to find dr jorge dr gasin engineers who have been supporting the marginalized communities this is really a demonstration of excellent engineering for social good especially now that we're talking about the agricultural sector our farmers which can be considered as one of the vulnerable sectors during this pandemic our farmers experience a high degree of economic marginalization and are already disproportionate risks in this public health emergency becoming even more vulnerable during this global pandemic so we owe it to our farmers to provide the access to this innovative project this is why manila water foundation will support our engineers such as dr jorge and dr agregating because after all of this innovative projects this would really benefit the marginalized communities in the philippines thank you so much mr and dad so that was um thank you so much for uh we honor you uh dr orr and dr gargashin for all the wonderful works that you've done we know that maraming challenges along the way finnish products so from a facebook user there is a question what rice technologies are we behind with other uh with other countries and also when other countries come to iri or irie in los banos to train on rice farming ayan so again um rice technologies behind tayo compared to other countries and uh what uh trainings i guess from from other countries do they go for in erie in los banos uh dr ore you can start yeah i think that um we have we are at par with other countries in terms of technologies and problem along so the extension system is quite needs to be improved but for the technologies i think we have and even our other uh colleagues have partnerships with scientists from from from other countries so we are updated with uh what uh are going on in other countries in terms of technology development i i am not so familiar in the comments all right thank you dr or hey can you post dr gagasit yeah i agree with the uh opinion of dr or is the system system of how we will extend or the farmers will easily adopt these technologies for example in terms of cost of production rice farming 12 pesos filipinos thailand eight pesos and cost of production per kilogram vietnam six around six teslas so muslim babylon that's the reason why we import and uh owns a rice terrification law the government intend to reduce the production costs by introducing appropriate technologies nothing magametre young cost of production at the same time you write machines and write scenes and write training for our farmers and we hope in terms of cost production in terms of your productivity nothing goes up and nothing and this really the big challenge on the part of the government and the engineers thank you thank you for dr gasino so as they mentioned we have to strengthen the backbone of the end to end solution technologies so i'm sure uh marami people engineers are not kidding so please uh find ways to also help our system be smart to be strengthened not to so that we can bring the solutions casino gentlemen to to our farmers in the countryside ayan so another question from twilight19 from facebook to sir fred this competition among asean countries specifically in their profession exists or on framework of uplifting standard level of competency any update from ptc regarding asean engineers or acpe engineers hey and so dr mansada i mean engineer monsada you can answer yeah thank you very much for that question but before i answer that question i would like to comment on the previous question uh because i'm really very very interested having been well having work having been born in pangasinan get married to in to a visayan and work in mindanao and my my work in mindanao especially i was involved in i was an assistant district governor hotari and we have seen i have seen how farmers work how they use technologies you know i think dr argue is very very pointedly said about deployment issue because uh one time i was at up i was telling them you know somebody was saying no we published this in the in the international magazine but i told them you know i have a very simple thing that i would like to say in pangasinan we raced along we growed along like this in mindanao in visayas we got along as small as that as well as in mindanao so bucket i was in turkey they were going big talon big eggplants uh malala king eggplants different kind of eggplants they have you know so something is wrong somewhere and i now i i saw that i i heard that from dr orgy about deploying technologies farmers don't see it from the from the screen don't see it you know in a website about two weeks ago i was told you know sir fred there are technologies in our website i told her you know i told her farmers will not look at your website because they don't have internet they don't have computers they don't even have a cell phone so maybe the best is go to the mountains where the mountains are don't don't wait for them to access your website go there immerse yourself teach them because you know you put the standard number so and so nobody cares but go there teach them like what doctor they was doing and dr gargasin are doing so uh deployment in thailand you know that the first technology that they got from ireland what did they do the king set up a facility for it to be tested and implemented up to the and the king support that very well the king him himself supported so i had that opportunity being at one time being the chair of the russian federation of the engineering organization to visit all of those and of course mrs masada visited also uh i see we encourage more not competition but cooperation among asian engineers in fact last week meeting a the annual meeting of the ashen federation of engineering organization we are developing a system of cooperation cooperation among the asian engineers and brand the asian engineers for international opportunities branding because i i told the body that you know filipinos are all over if i remember my number there are 159 countries where you can find filipino engineers 159 countries so because let's not you know compete with each other let's cooperate and create a brand name called asian engineers or asean technician or asean technologist and this is what we are doing of course we don't we don't just say ash and engineer we want to see asian engineers being led by filipinos asian engineers all over you you look at at the middle east at one time we had this grouping in the middle east what we did was to invite all the ambassadors from the action to attend that to attend that event if only to to make sure that we are together as ashen we can work together and you know make things happen for the ashen of course and uh we have had experience already in the philippines somebody a malaysian investor set up a palm oil processing plant in sultan and the first thing that he did was to call me asked for filipino engineers shokan work on the on designing and setting up constructing the plant now two of them are operating the plant as the plant managers so we are ptc is trying to promote not only filipinos but also the asean go not only of the filipinos but the whole action so another [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the only way that you can we can help them is really go to them of course with all intent of really helping you see they are going to be because somebody set up a company when they got the money they they were gone so do it do it properly i hope the government will listen look at it deploy me from my experience experience experience experience [Music] up to the time that i was as i've said i was a student at up naked in fact the reason why i was accepted in a group at eup was i was the only one who knows how to plant palais because somebody was farming at that area before and then one of the officers of the groups asked me what one thing that you can do that we cannot do i told him you know i i know how to plan so again [Music] so we know that there are still many concerns or problems that we need to to overcome and solutions don't come easy but i think because of this discussion we can start a conversation going no let's call on our more volunteers to go to our farmers the technologies are available the innovations are there we really just need to find the appropriate channels to be able to bring bring these technologies to our farmers know so popular volunteers because i'm also from the field of communication i think um not just engineers not just farmers lahatna professions i think have a stake in this concern from the field of communication we can also bring something to the table and be able to uh find the proper communication tools cases for our panelists how can individuals help the agricultural sector is there a platform for people to volunteer and share their skills to our farmers ayan so say i know the same line of thinking that i don't know with miss shelly what are your thoughts on engaging the private sector in these types of activities so mr and i maybe you can start this time well for manila foundation it's really just providing the platform um on how we could uh expand the reach to all sectors um there are a lot of private companies now and even non um profit organizations who have a lot of programs that can support our engineers that can support our farmers it's really a matter again of providing those opportunities for partnership and collaboration and dr jorge and dr agregating can always be assured of our support um so that we can um even engage more partners more collaborators in communicating what our engineers can do and can provide in terms of any intervention to this marginalized thank you mr anderson dr orhan dr gargasin dr volunteers [Music] [Music] hybrid and our primary function is research although i can see my attention related activities not to supplement we really welcome the participate participation of private companies uh actually phil rice did that in in partnership with a private company the east west seed corporation still i under provide nang seeds and local government unit of lupo and then we choose a veg vegetable farmers say rice farmers association beneficiary no no project and that that kind of tragic really uh created an impact thank you insights on how the private sector can volunteer or can help in this um concern first of all we need to patronize our own product particularly the filipino product agriculture english and yet we don't patronize our own we need numbers agriculture sector uh brown rice for example uh young people mayonnaise brown rice [Music] [Music] so we need numbers we need to promote our own product and we need to patronize it in in bagan so thank you so much brown promote and you know it's not available such a happy so not nothing platform [Music] or not in later on individual farmers they are now eating brown rice brown rice but this time you know young people not in they are now eating brown right they start to eat brown rice [Music] dr dregasin uh in behalf of grenoble feeling on behalf of the farmers thank you very much and i asked all the sectors which the apc represents for you to follow mwf engineering excellence no prize for engineering excellence and bring out more dr orgy more dr gregasin bring them out into the open and let's all help in making sure that we will have a sustainable developing philippines no not only your communities but the philippines so mwf price for engineering excellence next year early next year you will have ready uh somebody or many buddies if you may that you would like to nominate for this prize for engineering excellence award eventually we will become volunteers to volunteer to work with the communities so at this point we are still um entertaining questions so from vaughan from facebook for both our speakers are these technologies considered food safety and gender sensitivity dr jorge you can start what yes yes at field rice we are we have that ins international management system wherein we integrate issues on food safety gender or god gender and development issues so even in developing machines these are livelihood opportunities that favors both sex success so we have a rice chemistry and food science division that that looks into the the food safety because they developed incoming among our food products my report this will be reported in our research highlights uh process process tomato sake it is all right thank you dr jorge dr gregas here guys yes uh in the design and the development of the milling machines that i mentioned a while ago we always consider the philippine agricultural engineering standards here at safe billing operator nito particularly manga uh dubai so we always consider that and i hope jill will volunteer later on to operate the machine as a good model i will volunteer for that model all right so the inspire pool nothing see doctor organ ecommerce so we can sell our local produce in the online market today so for dr ore and dr gragassin aside from upgrading technologies and infra in farms how can our farmers adjust to the adversities caused by climate change and fluctuating economy so i know that this is the last question so okay dr gragas we are blessed now every year more than 18 typhoons abdulmadansa filipina but you finally changed that's the reason why we develop appropriate machineries what's our best machines like dryer for example mechanical in high school by nothing these are all technologies available for each year more than 5 billion and board of machineries completely going a young government through the rice competitiveness enhancement fund nothing and ito hopefully uh for the next six years uh maraming and hopefully these machineries will help them compete in their international market at the same time overcome young adversity and climate change and thank you paul dr grgasin for that answer and also we'll we'll continue to look forward towards that rice competit competit competitiveness and enhancement fund that we will that you are rolling out so doctor orga mindset neo-normal normal so we need to consider it seriously usually climate change lectures farmers anxious at uh to cope up we really need uh technology so hindi kullang report [Music] but we keep on uh developing things for the future uh one example is the uh farm tractor in manhattan i designed in the last the develop 1950s so we are now developing um a mini tractor that considers climate change manga issues non-climate change is something that travels during dry season it can uh help in drilling uh wells through attachment thank you so at this point i would like to thank you say thank you to all our panelists for today thank you dr thank you dr gargasin sir jandal and engineer for joining this webinar series we've truly learned a lot and for all the other comments uh thank you so much and the questions we will be answering them offline passenger that we were not able to answer them uh today so before we end the session i'd like to ask a final question um to mr organ mr gragassian so i am curious how did winning the manila water foundation prize for engineering excellence impact your career as an engineer and innovator so dr organ you can start miss universe [Laughter] the award really was something great and with it that great award comes great responsibility paramobian but i still believe that it was not an accident it was a heaven-sent award that made me think now i have really to strive more i have really to work because um my manga responsibilities i i i look at it now my my responsibilities that's why napan senior shocking presentation my focus now is more on thus smallholder farmers society the base of the pyramid ito young group they could hardly respond in times of crisis because they have different uh limited resources to respond they are not capable of competing so thank you oli thank you so much dr orji if you only know how much you've inspired us now all through these years since we've known you and we've known your your your hard work uh in achieving a sustainability pot for our farmers and helping them so dr gargasin uh same question how did the price impact your career as an engineer and innovator first of all that time especially this was awarded by the manila water foundation it's very lasting for engineering excellence family or network so i should always carry that character the dna for that passion to contribute to help always work for excellence in finding solutions with high relevance in order to make our country's agriculture sustainable but i'm enjoying the monetary next generation in truly truly we are always inspired by the good works that you do that we know that it's you you do it not for yourself but for others especially our farmers so thank you so much for so at this point i would like to thank all of you for joining us this morning and we hope to see you again very soon thank you so much um so again unanswered questions from our viewers will be collated by the mwf team and will be shared to our speakers and a summary of their answers will be then sent to the registered attendees and to formally close not just this episode but also our webinar series let us all welcome the executive director of manila water foundation mr reginald m andal thank you jill good day everyone i would like to thank you all for joining us today for the third and last episode of the engineers for excellent webinar series it's only been 10 months since we had awarded the third batch of awardees of the manila water foundation price for engineering excellence or the prize but we have gathered today and the previous webinars to continuously push forward our intention to foster the ingenuity of filipino engineers as many of you may know we have given recognition to 10 filipino engineers for the past three runs of the prize but aside from the prizes and recognition that they highly deserve we also want to extend our unceasing support by providing platforms where they can promote their projects and technologies and now we are in the middle of a pandemic and it is our reality now this is why we are glad that you have given us the opportunity to showcase the innovative and relevant projects of dr ricardo jorge and dr michael gragassin and we all agree that there has been much to be gained from today's learning session which demonstrates the very essence of engineering excellence maximizing the use of science and technology for the good of others our philippine fellow filipinos the unprecedented public health crisis recognizes and reaffirms the urgent need for all of us to work together especially for the marginalized sector like the agricultural for our farmers this also presents the opportunities for our engineers to build a resilient future and save and protect the lives of more filipinos through the advancement and implementation of science and technology and eventually the agenda for sustainable development let me conclude this remarks by acknowledging the support of our program partners manila water company department of science and technology our secretary fortonato de la pena and the philippine technological council engineer fred montada and of course the great work of spearheading this initiative my colleagues in the manila water foundation princess bugai jill ramos sandy sandoval alexis spingle and zapy antonio with that i hope that all of us will take inspiration from our outstanding engineers and for those of you who would want to join us and make a difference please be part of our advocacy of bringing wash for all communities let us all stay safe and healthy and thank you have a great day ahead thank you so much sirech for that wonderful message and just like what sarah mentioned we will continue to take inspiration from our excellent engineers so before we end we invite everyone to answer a very short evaluation form by scanning the qr code flash on your screens a link to the survey platform is also posted in the comment section an electronic certificate will be issued as soon as you have accomplished the evaluation form it's been an honor to be your host for today on behalf of manila water foundation and our partners dost and ptc we hope that you had a fun learning experience again i am jill and see you on our next webinar series stay safe everyone you

Channel: Manila Water Foundation

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Length: 139min 34sec (8374 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 02 2020