Written and Photos, Taken by Amylyn Rey-Castro
A roadshow of modern farm technologies is set to be held on April 24 – 25, 2018 at Southern Tagalog Integrated Agricultural Research Center (STIARC), Lipa City, Batangas.
Towards this end, technical committee for the conduct of the said roadshow composing of experts from the Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech), FIT Corea Trading Philippines, Inc. – Korea Agricultural Machinery Industry Cooperative (KAMICO) Representation in the Philippines, and the Department of Agriculture Region IV CALABARZON, convened once again last April 17 at STIARC to finalize all the activities lined up.
At 9:00 AM of April 24, an opening ceremony including the ribbon cutting for exhibits will be held, while in the afternoon, from 1:00 to 5:00 PM, simultaneous lectures will be given to the farmers such as land preparation, seedling preparation, and transplanting/direct seeding at seminar room 1; harvesting and threshing (reaper, thresher, combine harvester), drying, and rice milling at seminar room 2; mechanization, postharvest technologies, and by-product utilization of cacao, and state of the industry and postharvest operation of coffee at seminar room 3; and Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) regulations on livestock industry and national animal waste resource management program updates at seminar room 4 at Southern Tagalog Integrated Agricultural Research Center (STIARC) and Lipa Agricultural Research and Experiment Station (LARES).
On April 25, there will be technology demonstrations which will also be held simultaneously at STIARC demonstration farm and at a farm in Padre Garcia.
Agricultural technology units for demonstration are 40 horsepower (HP) and 55 HP tractors, rotavator (attached to 40 HP), levee maker (attached to 40 HP), leveler, rotating plow, direct seeder, riding cultivator for boom sprayer, underground crop farmer, handy cultivator with plow and former attachments and the one with reaper.
Around 200 farmers in the region are expected to attend the said activity and become more knowledgeable in different topics towards agricultural productivity and efficiency.