Cebu farm receives 1st Green-E award from energy department

Wellisa Farms, a poultry and piggery farm in Cebu, was one of the five recipients of the first Green-E Award from the Department of Energy (DOE) last week in recognition of its excellence in generating energy from farm waste.

Owned and operated by Wellington Chanlim, Wellisa Farms collects all the manure generated by its two piggery farms in Bantayan Island and Tayud, Consolacion, Cebu and converts it into energy using biogas digesters.

The Green-E Awards program recognizes most of all private business endeavors that promote renewable energy technolo-gies. Instead of imposing mandatory regulations that enforce the use of renewable energy in the business sector, the awards program creates a favorable incentive that stimulates more effective public awareness and participation.

The other awardees were the Northwind Power Development Corp. for its Bangui Bay wind power project, Gaya Lim Farm, Inc. for methane recovery and electricity, Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation, Inc. for its hydraulic ram pump project, and Pasig Agricultural Development and Industrial Supply Corp. for its grain dryer with biomass furnace.

The biogas digester of Wellisa Farms in Consolacion alone generates 1,000 cubic meters of methane gas daily, equivalent to 75 kw (kilowatts) of energy or 600 liters of diesel. Its methane gas has a heating value of 5,500 kcal (kilocalories) per cubic meter.

The biogas digester, a fixed dome with a hydraulic middle discharge unit designed in China, was introduced to the farm by the Alternative Non-Renewable Energy Center at the University of San Carlos.

The methane gas is consumed by the farm’s paper pulp molding machine, which manufactures eggs trays, as the farm has a total 250,000 poultry layers in Bantayan Island.

Even if the cost of diesel is P30 per liter, the farm already saves P18,000 everyday or P540,000 a month. In one year, therefore, Wellisa Farms saves a total P6.48 million.

At the same time, the biogas digester recycles an average of 20,000 liters of water daily, which is used for washing the pigs and the pig pens. Thus, the farm uses only a minimal amount of groundwater.

Instead of using lagoons, the farm uses settling and solid separation ponds for the accumulation of recycled water and sludge, which the farm uses for the manufacture of organic fertilizer. 

Incidentally, Wellisa Farms is the largest franchisee of Novatech Agri-Food Industries in the manufacture of Durabloom, an organic fertilizer that is now used widely by corn and sugarcane growers in Mindanao and Central Luzon.

However, most of the organic fertilizer materials used for the manufacture of Durabloom come from poultry manure, which is quickly fermented and digested by Biosec, a microbial inoculant produced by Novatech Agri-Food Industries. The inoculant also makes the resulting organic fertilizer odorless and, hence, user-friendly.

Corn and sugarcane growers alike in Mindanao claim that Durabloom application has greatly increased their yields and net income. – Sosimo Ma. Pablico