VILLASIS, Pangasinan – Former 5th district Rep. Mark Cojuangco underscored the proper drying of palay would contribute in ensuring the optimum yield of farmers from their produce that would eventually translate to increased income that will contribute in improving their living condition.
Cojuangco recently visited the Villasis Palay Drying facility, which he buildt when he was still a lawmaker, in order to teach interested farmers and operators on how to avail of the services of optimal drying of their payal harvest for them to be able to get higher buying prices for their produce.
He rasied obsdervations that the current drying process of palay farmers needs to be improved. He referred to the inconsistency of the facility’s daily load through an illustration of a line graph that resembled the figure of a hill.
The left side of the illustration represented the increase and decrease in the volume of dried ‘palay’ in a span of forty-five days. Drawing a straight horizontal line representing the consistent volume of ‘palay’ in the same length of time, he stressed: “The volume of ‘palay’ being dried in our drying facilities should be stable.”
That being said, was his idea of optimization, ensuring the facility dry the ideal number of loads of ‘palay’ every day. He added: “There should be equal distribution of ‘palay’ to be dried.”
During the six hours lapsed inspection and teaching of the Optimal Drying Process, Cojuangco demonstrated the right technique in driving a forklift; proved his claim of the facility’s capability of drying almost one hundred (100) metric tons of rice in six hours, a staggering four hundred (400) metric tons a day.
The facility is able to recover almost one hundred percent (100%) of the total volume of ‘palay’ it processed, compared to the conventional solar drying process done on roads and/or national highways which inevitably loses around five percent (5%) of the yield. Vehicles running over the crops result to broken grains and acquire unwanted materials such as pebbles in the process.
The former congressman spearheaded the construction of drying facilities during his stint in congress. Kimi Cojuangco, his better half and incumbent fifth district representative continued the project allowing its completion in 2012 has served numerous farmers in Villasis and adjoining municipalities since then.
The tobacco excise tax and Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) funded the construction of the seventy million pesos (PhP 70M) Villasis Drying Facilities and Warehouse. A similar drying facility was also constructed in the municipality of Alcala, Pangasinan.
By Herald Express News Team
