Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.

THE Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PHilMech) and its partners from South Korea have officially kicked off the P180-million Agricultural Mechanization Design and Prototyping Center (AMDPC) project.

PHOTO FROM PHILMECH WEBSITE PHOTO FROM PHILMECH WEBSITE

The landmark project mainly involves the establishment of a state-of-the-art AMDPC at the PHilMech campus in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija. The $3.6-million project will have design and prototyping equipment for farm machines.

PhilMech, an agency under the Department of Agriculture (DA), said it will be working with the DA central office, along with the Korea International Cooperation Agency, Korea Institute for Development Strategy (KDS) and the Korea Agricultural Machinery Cooperative (Kamico). The two companies will serve as Korea's Project Monitoring Committee that will also look into organizing some of the country's national agencies to form a project steering committee to help promote the project, which will be discussed and coordinated with PHilMech.

"Kamico will provide technical expertise and guidance on the agricultural machinery research and development (R&D), and manufacturing, while KDS will focus on the agricultural and rural area development with the introduction of the new agricultural machineries produced from this project," PhilMech said in a statement.

At the same time, the DA central office will oversee the entire project through its Project Steering Committee, headed by Agriculture Undersecretary Ariel Cayanan. Meanwhile, the Agriculture department's Special Projects Coordination and Management Assistance Division will monitor the implementation of the project.

"The AMDPC will produce customized agricultural machines that would be suitable to Philippine conditions, with the aim of increasing the mechanization rate in the country," said PhilMech.

The agency said that 12 machines were initially identified as pilot technologies to be locally produced from the AMDPC and will be featured in a targeted roadshow sometime in 2027.

Through the roadshow, it is hoped that there will be a raised awareness for agricultural machines, increasing the demand for the production of the technologies in following years.

The group will also be developing a locally appropriate education module for agricultural machinery R&D and manufacturing as well as to conduct educational programs with policy support from PHilMech.