Hydroponics, the science of soil-less agriculture, and the Bio-Mechanical Goat, the improvised garbage digester being promoted by Foundation University, have found a new home at the University of the Philippines Visayas Tacloban College.
The sharing of technology took place during a three-day workshop at the UPV Tacloban campus last week. The workshop was initiated by UPV-Tacloban Dean Margarita de la Cruz, who invited a team from Foundation University to do the workshop.
De la Cruz had seen the BMG and Hydroponics up close during a visit to Foundation University in Dumaguete last year and organized the workshop to introduce the technology in her campus.
FU President Dr. Mira Sinco sent Engr. Mark Espedilla, dean of the FU College of Agriculture; Dr. Aparicio Mequi, coordinator of university environment programs and Alex Pal, consultant for university advancement, to speak before some 30 UPV-TC faculty and staff on the theme Green Environment: Zero Waste Management Seminar Workshop from April 17-19.
“We sent our administrators to UPV-TC as our Ambassadors of Caring and Sharing and we are happy that even a small institution like ours has something to share with the world,” Sinco said. She noted that Foundation University also has a special link with the University of the Philippines as Dr. Vicente G. Sinco, who founded the Foundation Institute in 1949, also served as the eighth president of UP from 1958-1962.
Other institutions have also indicated their interest to learn of the environmental and agricultural technology that is being used at FU. “This is a technology that we have not perfected yet–there is much we can learn from each other,” Dr. Mequi said during the BMG workshop. The design of the BMG, Mequi noted, continues to improve as more and more people use it.
Aside from talking about waste management and agricultural technology, the speakers at the seminar-workshop also discussed Health and Wellness and the communication component of a total environment program.
The workshop participants were so interested in learning about the BMG and hydroponics that in one session, they even forgot that it was already lunchtime, said Dean Espedilla.
UP Tacloban Dean dela Cruz, who is a Gawad Bayani ng Kalikasan Awardee, said that the seminar-workshop proved very informative and interesting. Dela Cruz transformed the school’s green house into a hydroponics facility while several faculty and staff were also eyeing the possibility of replicating the small projects in their homes.
Dela Cruz, who also chairs the Guiuan Development Foundation in Guiuan, Samar, said the technology shared by Foundation University could even benefit the people of Samar.
The BMG has also been replicated and introduced on a municipal scale in Manjuyod town, in what is called “The Manjuyod Experiment.” The experiment, started by then Governor Jose “Petit” Baldado, is an attempt to encourage zero waste management in the town’s barangays. In the course of the experiment, BMG users have made improvisations in its design.
