Bye Yellow Brick Road! UV Plastic Solar Dryer Up In Alamada, Cotabato

Very soon, the sight of concrete national highways turning into a virtual “Yellow Brick Road” because of thousands of tons of Yellow Corn being sun-dried may come to an end.
Next month, the first ever UV Plastic Sheet-covered Solar Dryer will be built in Barangay Dado, Alamada, North Cotabato.
While this is not a new technology, this will be the first time that a model of this kind will be established in a town known as one of the major Corn producer in the province.
We are building this UV Plastic Sheet-covered Solar Dryer in preparation for our huge production of Sorghum and Soybeans by the end of this year and early next year.
I also hope that this would encourage other farmers to adopt this technology which when implemented could stop the dangerous practice of drying Yellow Corn along concrete highways which not only endangers motorists but also affects the quality of the corn or grains.
The provision of Solar Drying Facilities had been one of the weakest links in the post-harvest program of the Department of Agriculture.
Hundreds of expensive dryers had been built but many of these are gas-powered making these not economically viable.
In the drying flow that I designed, the grains will first be placed in the UV Plastic Sheet-covered Dryer until the Moisture Content is reduced to about 18 to 20 per cent.
From there, the grains will be moved to two Mechanical Dryers to be built by Jover Light Industries, a family-owned mechanical dryer fabrication company which produces the best mechanical dryers.
As soon as the grains reach the designed moisture content (14% for Soybeans and Corn, 13% for Sorghum), these will be fed to a grains cleaning machine to eliminate impurities and then placed in 50-kilo bags.
With this innovation, we will be able to produce quality grains which could command a better price from feed mills who emphasize good quality grains like CP Foods Philippines and General Santos Feedmill Inc.
#KungGustoMaramingParaan!
(The first two photos were forwarded to me by Patsanun “Toto” Kasamsuk of CP Foods Phils. while the last two photos were taken in the UV Plastic Sheet-covered drying facility of Saranay Feed Mills owned by the Southern Christian College in Midsayap, Cotabato.)