Negros Oriental holds training on emergency food

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) has conducted a technology transfer training on the production of healthy emergency food formulated by its scientists and researchers in Negros Oriental.

The DOST’s Negros Oriental Provincial Science and Technology Office spearheaded the conduct of Emergency Food Reserve (EFR) production training at Silliman University in Dumaguete City recently.

EFR, also known as Sagip-Nutri Flour and developed by the DOST Industrial Technology Development Institute (ITDI), is a blend of powders made from nutritious and indigenous crops such as cassava, sweet potato, moringa ( malunggay), squash and mungbean ( monggo).

This nutritious flour can be transformed into an array of food products such as noodles, cake, pastries, bread, drink powder, soup and native delicacies to provide balance and add variety to emergency food rations and nutrition feeding.

The technology is also open for adoption by local entrepreneurs and community livelihood associations and cooperatives.

The EFR in Silliman University attracted 25 participants from several government, academic and private entities, including food manufacturing enterprises.

“The purpose of the seminar is to develop an emergency food which can be distributed as relief food to disaster victims in times of calamity,” said Alvyn Klein Manaay of Silliman, one of the resource persons.

The DOST-ITDI first introduced the EFR technology in Negros Oriental in 2015 through a training workshop with some professors of the university including Mana-ay, Michele Naranjo, and Ruth Ann Entea who all served as resource persons.

After a short lecture about disaster preparedness, food safety, and EFR production’s relevance and implications, the trainers and participants walked through the step-by-step procedure of producing Sagip flour and its by products that included chocolate bars, polvoron and dried noodles.