In today’s business environment, agro-food processing optimizes returns from a farmer’s toil. Rice for instance has its own market share of value-added products which are significant in improving the profitability of rice communities in the Cordilleras.
Recognizing such, 30 members and representatives of the Western Tabuk Rice Cluster and Alfonso Lista Rice Cluster Federation, Inc. were convened for a Project Development Training for Small Enterprise: Training on Value Added Processing on Rice and Rice By-Products at the Agricultural Training Institute-Regional Training Center-Cordillera Administrative Region (ATI-RTC-CAR) on March 28 – April 1, 2022.
This forms part of the Department of Agriculture’s Farm and Fisheries Clustering and Consolidation Program (DA-F2C2) for greater inclusive agri-business development. The clusters as established community-based enterprises are being strengthened to upscale from sustenance farming into a more focused business enterprise. Hence, the training was meant to reinforce rice-based product development and basic cost and return analysis to boost the farmers’ income.
In his opening message, ATI-RTC-CAR OIC-Center Director Charlie Sagudan reminded that food preparation is a basic life skill and not a gender role. “Whether you’re a husband or a wife, a woman or a man, you have to know how to cook,” he furthered recognizing the active participation of women in food processing as well as the involvement of male participants who have joined the training.
The lecture-discussions started with an input on Good Management Practices and Food Safety highlighting the current Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and its components. This was followed by series of talks and hands-on demonstrations on pancit canton making enriched with vegetables including its production costing and nutritional profile; rice wine and binubudan making; and rice crackers, choco rice crispies, rice fudge, and rice coffee preparations.
“We express our appreciation for this opportunity to be able to join this training. We were given various ideas on how to diversify our rice produce so that we do not merely focus on one product or on the usual. We enjoyed our stay and our learning sessions” Sheril Macadangdang of Alfonso Lista, Ifugao shared.
Mae Sacyat of Tabuk City, Kalinga added that the additional inputs from the resource speakers resolved their queries. “We acknowledge that we do not know everything and that this training cleared up our how’s,” she said. Moreover, Annie Mury Santiago, a youth representative of the Kalinga cluster stated that the training might not be in line with her degree but the skills learned from the trainers are practical which are absolutely useful to anybody regardless of profession.
The activity was a joint undertaking of ATI-RTC-CAR, Benguet State University-Food Science Research Innovation Center (BSU-FSRIC) and BSU-Northern Philippine Root Crops Research and Training Center (NPRCRTC).
To date, there are already 12 clusters in CAR which are collaborative projects of DA-RFO-CAR, ATI-RTC-CAR, BFAR-CAR, PhilRice-Isabela and PhilMech
