LUNA, Apayao – The Roll Out of Complementary Food Production (CFP) In The Regions, a DOST project awarded to five (5) regions in the country namely CAR, Regions 1VB,lX, Xll and CARAGA with DOST-CAR as the lead region represented by its project recipient Apayao State College (ASC) will be launched on July 14,2015 in Payanan, San Gregorio, Luna, Apayao .
This project is a research partnership with the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) with a total project cost of P26, 934, 772.00 for the whole country’s project.
As one of the recipients of the project, ASC received a large scale processing equipment worth P 5 million from DOST-CAR thru the leadership of Director Dr. Julius Caesar V. Sicat.
The said State College is also a beneficiary of trainings, and other forms of assistance from DOST-FNRI and the provincial government of Apayao. For its counterpart, ASC constructed the CFP Building in its extension land area in Payanan which was donated by the municipality of Luna under the leadership of Mayor Josephine Bangsil and the provincial Government of Apayao led by Gov. Elias C. Bulut, Jr..
The objective of the project is to transfer and commercialize the three (3) FNRI-developed complementary food technologies in the regions. Specifically, first, to introduce affordable and nutritious complementary food products using rice blended with mongo and/or sesame. Second, to facilitate the adoption and commercialization of rice-mongo curls, rice-mongo-baby blend and rice-mongo-sesame baby food blend. And lastly to strengthen the partnership of DOST, LGUs, SUCs and private sector and other institutions in the implementation of the project in five (5) regions.
The project is seen to strengthen the partnership between and among the collaborating agencies like DOST, LGUs, private sector, SUCs and other institutions in the process of implementing of the project in said five (5) regions.
In order to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for malnutrition reduction and poverty alleviation, the project was conceived after the success of the field testing of DOST PINOY using the complementary food technologies in the provinces of Antique, Occidental Mindoro, Leyte and Iloilo to a total of 1, 006 children. Results showed a significant decrease in the prevalence of underweight children in the intervention group from 96.7% to 82.1% compared to the non-intervention group from 100% to 94.9% and not significant.
The project targets to reduce the prevalence of malnutrition by 6.6 % in 2015 with an average annual reduction of 1.65% from 2011 through the use of the complimentary nutritious food produced by the said facility which will be distributed regionwide.
Malnutrition remains the national priority of the government as reflected in FNRI’s 2011 data that the percentage of malnourished children is 20.2 % against the target 13.6 % by 2015.
The Apayao CFP envisions to improve the nutritional status of children of the province and neighboring communities.
Prior to the said blessing and commissioning, a training was conducted last June 23 to 24 at Payanan, Luna to facilitate the technology adoption and commercialization of the FNRI-developed complementary food technologies to be rolled-out from the facility.
As a partner sharing the common vision, ASC President Nieves A. Dacyon said that this convergence project is a concrete and timely response of the college on poverty alleviation as it upgrades along its four-fold functions.
“The project will certainly enhance the R&D capacity if its agriculture program as it requires production of tons of rice and mongo as raw materials,” said Leilani A. Parugrug, the project coordinator for Research and Development.
“We foresee it as a laboratory and training facility to support the production function of the college,” she added.
“But only through maintenance, proper handling of the equipment and support that this CFP be sustained,” said Engr. Mario Cabagbag of FNRI in a radio interview.
The leaders of the province express their all-out support to the project as they see this as a mechanism to boost the economy of the locality.
Jaylord Agpuldo
