Bansalan farm center MBRLC turns farm waste into resources, wins DOST circularity award

The Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center (MBRLC) Foundation, Inc. in Barangay Kinuskusan, Bansalan, Davao del Sur, has been recognised by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Regional Office XI for a farm system built around recycling, according to Edge Davao.

The center received the CIRCLE Award under DOST's Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program (SETUP) this year. The award honours organisations with scalable, impactful solutions tied to environmental stewardship and social responsibility, the report said.

Founded in 1971 and known for developing sustainable farming technologies for upland farmers, MBRLC reuses materials across its operations before anything leaves the farm. "We practice recycling in order to eliminate waste in the farm, and waste can be used for soil conservation and amelioration," said MBRLC Director Jethro P. Adang.

One example is the center's Food Always In The Home (FAITH) Garden, a home gardening model meant to give rural families year-round vegetables. Bamboo basket or trench composts placed in the garden beds take in kitchen scraps, goat manure and leaves from nitrogen-fixing trees such as kakawate and ipil-ipil, which break down into compost that feeds the surrounding crops.

In the center's dairy goat program, forage grown near the barns feeds the goats, and their manure is returned to the forage fields as fertiliser. Adang said waste rice bran from the feed mill goes to the chickens, while some leftover feed ingredients are given to tilapia in the fishpond.

Other by-products are also put to use, according to the report. Pig and goat manure, discarded produce and crop wastes such as coconut husks and banana trunks feed vermicomposting beds. Wastewater from milk processing irrigates gardens during the dry season, and fermented animal urine becomes foliar fertiliser. Crop residues are returned to the soil as mulch.

The recognition comes amid a national waste problem. Edge Davao cited former DENR Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga as saying the country produces about 61,000 metric tons of waste daily, nearly a quarter of it plastic. Solid waste generation rose from 9.07 million metric tons in 2000 to 16.63 million in 2020, despite the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, which took effect in 2001.

Adang said the center plans to improve its existing practices and continue teaching younger generations to recycle as a contribution to addressing climate change.