BANGUED, Abra – Folks from five municipalities here have learned how to produce their own flour during the two-day Emergency Food Reserve Training of the Department of Science and Technology.
DOST-Abra Officer-in-Charge Aileen Malangen said the training is focused on ensuring food security especially during disasters and emergencies.
“We are frequently hit by calamities so it’s high time that we use our crops for emergency food reserve especially during disasters or emergencies so that although we cannot go out, we still have flour that we can cook to make nutritious food,” she said.
Epifania Bayudang of the Alibtak Farmers Association from San Ramon East, Manabo was thankful for the opportunity to attend the training that taught them to make non-wheat flour using local crops like cassava, kamote, malunggay leaves, and mung beans.
“This training is good for our baking project because we learned a lot from it. Our project proposal is a bakery project so we can now make our own flour,” Bayudang said.
Other participants from the La Paz Integrated School and members of different organizations from Manabo, San Isidro, Lagayan, and Langiden were also trained to make food products such as polvoron and swiss roll out of the flour they produced from local crops.
Aside from ensuring food security during disasters, the skills training also opened livelihood opportunities especially for local farmers.
“This is also a way of encouraging our farmers na magtanim kasi once na nag-commercialize ang mga assisted organizations natin, they will need supply so magkakaroon ng ready market ‘yung mga farmers natin dito,” Malanged said.
She added the flour made from local crops, if processed properly, has stable shelf life and it can last up to a year.
The Emergency Food Reserve Training is under the Local Grants-in-Aid (LGIA) project of the DOST for the La Paz Intergrated School.
Malangen said that other associations assisted by the DOST were included to maximize the training. The LGIA aims to tap the scientific and technological abilities of communities towards sustainable development through promoting appropriate technologies to improve productivity and quality of life. – Jamie Joie Malingan
