SCIENCE CITY OF MUÑOZ, Nueva Ecija—The Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization or PHilMech, a technology arm of the Department of Agriculture, inaugurated its Bio-Processing Research and Development facility at its headquarters here on Wednesday.
The launching was featured during PHilMech’s 39th Anniversary, which coincided with the 18th Postharvest Loss Prevention Week.
The facility will produce research outputs that will benefit farmer-producers, food processors and exporters of farm products, the agency said.
PHilMech has invested a total of P78 million for the establishment of the facility, P53 million of which was spent for the acquisition of laboratory equipment.
Dr. Ofer Caparino, head of the PHilMech Bioprocess Engineering Division, said among the equipment bought for the facility is a microscope that has a magnifying power of up to 300,000 times, costing around P10 million.
He said the BPED, which already produced a number of ground-breaking research, was created to develop technologies to create value-added products from agricultural crops and even wastes.
“The decision was largely in consideration of the tremendous importance of the food and beverage processing sector to our economy, which, according to the National Statistics Office, contributed P903.7 billion in 2011 or 58 percent of our total manufacturing output for said year,” Dr. Caparino said.
With the Bio-Processing Research and Development facility, the BPED can undertake more research and commercialize matured technologies faster, which will benefit farmer-producers, food processors and exporters of farm products, he added.
One of PHilMech’s ground-breaking initiatives under BPED was in 2012, when it completed a pioneering research in the production of pharmaceutical-grade pectin. This bio-polymer, that is produced as a white or light brown powder, is mainly used by the food processing, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries as thickening, gelling and stabilizing agents.
This pectin is made from mango peels at a cost of P5,667.51 per kilogram – or more than five times cheaper than the landed cost of imported apple pectin at P27,122.56/kg.
The agency also has researched producing charcoal briquettes from burned rice straws and discarded cacao husks. Drippings from cacao prior to fermenting can also be used to make soft drinks, wine and vinegar.
PhilMech also estimates a volume of 3.38 million metric tons of cacao husks are thrown away every year, which is a tremendous amount of unused resource.
Discarded rice straws also has the potential to be processed into animal feed, and for coconut husks to be made into water filters. The country produces about 18 million metric tons of rice straw annually, and 1.8 million metric tons of coconut husks.
Discarded cashew kernels can likewise be processed into a liquid that can be used as raw material for friction dust of brake linings, and as fuel for industrial furnaces.
Besides discovering the uses of discarded agricultural wastes, the bio-processing facility will develop processes that will help farmers add value to their products, or process them into finished products that have longer shelf life, the BPED chief added.
“The development of processes to develop more products from agriculture products and wastes is the primary R&D agenda of the Bio-Processing Research and Development facility,” Caparino said.