Biggest Southeast Asia corn facility rises in Isabela

Southeast Asia's biggest corn-processing facility in Isabela province will soon be functional. President Benigno Aquino III will inaugurate the post harvest facility during next month’s Philippine National Corn Congress. Philippine Maize Federation president Roger Navarro said late Tuesday the Reina Mercedes Corn Processing Center has the capacity to process as much as 200,000 metric tons (MT) of yellow corn per year. The P500-million facility is also equipped with state-of-the-art bulk silos that can store as much as 60,000 MT of grain for more than six months, he said. Navarro said the facility will buy fresh corn-on-cobs and process these into high quality grains for the feed millers. The center will be using advanced renewable energy technologies to help reduce greenhouse gases and attain energy self-sufficiency. The facility will use corncobs as biomass fuel for the dryers, he added. "The immediate benefit to our small corn farmers will be higher income by as much as 15 percent as the center will buy the produce from farmers directly as corn-on-cobs, bypassing trader and layers and give them spot premium on cash basis," Navarro said. The Reina Mercedes Corn Processing Center is a project of Mindanao Grains Processing Co. Inc., a unit of La Filipina Uycongco Corp. Group of Companies and the Department of Agriculture. Based on government figures, corn production from July to December 2010 will contract to 3.80 million MT from 3.82 million MT in the same period last year. For the 2010, the whole year production is expected to drop to 6.22 million MT from 7.03 million MT in 2009. —JE, GMANews.TV