October 11, 2010

Philippines opens largest corn facility in SEA

Philippine president Benigno Aquino inaugurated the PHP500 million (US$11.5 million) Reina Mercedes Corn Processing Center (RMCC) on Friday (Oct 8), the biggest post-harvest facility in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

The facility is constructed in Isabela, a province that is a major corn producer in the vast and fertile Cagayan Valley region.

"The small corn farmers will directly benefit from this," Aquino said at the commissioning rites for the facility, during which he ceremonially switched on the equipment that started the centre's operation.

The immediate benefit for the farmers will be in the form of higher incomes and better yields because of the infrastructure and the machines that will dry and process their corn, Aquino said.

The RMCC, built at a cost of PHP500 million (US$11.5 million), will help local farmers by directly purchasing their produce of fresh corn-on-the-cob, and processing them into high-quality corn grains.

The facility can process up to 200,000 tonnes of corn-on-the-cob into dried high-quality grains, and store them in state-of-the-art bulk silos with a total capacity of 60,000 tonnes.

The facility was built by Mindanao Grain Processing Co. (MGPC), a unit of the La Filipina Uycongco Corp. group of companies. The MGPC also operates two corn processing centres in Bukidnon province, but the Isabela facility has five times the capacity of the Bukidnon plants.

The MGPC said it put up the centre to improve agricultural efficiency, increase farming income, develop food security and promote social justice not only for the farmers of Isabela but also for the whole region.