PHilMech opens 3rd regional center

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PHilMech) has opened its third regional technology management and demonstration center (RTMDC) in Davao.

The new RTMDC is located at DARCES compound, Manambulan, Tugbok District, Davao City.

The RTMDC is a full-service hub that brings PHilMech’s generated technologies and services readily availableto the community.

As a one-stop-shop, it caters as a training and learning site, an information shop, demonstration venue, and as a business and farm advisory hub.

It offers regular postharvest and mechanization courses and modules, supports skills and hands-on training, interactive learning, information dissemination shop, display and exhibits of actual generated technologies from PHilMech, and mentoring on available enterprise models, that are open to all stakeholders and interested individuals.

“We hope that this center will make a difference in helping the farmers in transforming the future of agriculture.

We hope that this strategy of PHilMech will help improve the sector in Mindanao,” PHilMech OIC assistant director Ofero Capariño said.

This is the third RTMDC launched in the country, with the first and second launched in Pili, Camarines Sur and in Abuyog, Leyte in 2019.

PHilMech said the RTMDCs – now located in every major island of the country – will allow farmers to have easy access to information and technology services, with the overall aim of commercializing more postharvest and farm mechanization technologies.

It will serve as a training and learning site, technology demonstration and deployment site, information dissemination hub, and farm and business advisory kiosk.

The RTMDCs will also offer business advisory, or assist clients in the formation of agribusiness enterprises using the postharvest and farm mechanization technologies developed by the agency.

Clients assisted will then be referred to enterprises and institutions that are partners of PHilMech in the development, manufacture, and distribution of its developed technologies for the farming sector.

An attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA), PHilMech is mandated to generate, extend and commercialize appropriate and problem-oriented agriculture and fishery postharvest and mechanization technologies, practices and systems.