MECHANIZED GRAIN COLLECTOR

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Situation Analysis

The Philippines is still primarily an agricultural country despite the plan to turn it an

industrialized economy by 2000. Most citizens still live in rural areas and support themselves

through agriculture. The country's agriculture sector is made up of 4 sub-sectors: farming,

fisheries, livestock, and forestry (the latter 2 sectors are very small), which together employ 39.8

percent of the labor force and contribute 20 percent of GDP. The total area devoted to

agricultural crops is 13 million hectares. This is distributed among food grains, food crops and

non-food crops. Food grains occupied 31% (4.01 million hectares), food crops utilized 52%

(8.33 million hectares) while 17% (2.2 million hectares) were used for non-food crops.

(nationsencyclopedia.com)

The major crop grown and distributed in the region is rice. One of the oldest cereal

grains, rice (Oryza sativa) is believed to have been grown for at least 5000 years. It is a staple

food for more than half of the world's population, particularly those living in southern and

eastern Asia. (medicalnewstoday.com)

The Philippines is the world’s eighth-largest rice producer. According to ricepedia.org its

arable land totals 5.4 million hectares. Rice area harvested has expanded from nearly 3.8 million

hectares in 1995 to about 4.4 million hectares in 2010. However, the country’s rice area

harvested is still very small compared with that of the other major rice-producing countries in
Asia. More than two-thirds (69%) of its rice area is irrigated. The country’s production increased

by a third, from 10.5 million t in 1995 to 15.8 million t in 2010. Seventy-one percent of rice

production came from irrigated areas. Although yield improved from 2.8 t/ha in 1995 to 3.6 t/ha

in 2010, it was still way below the yield potential of modern varieties. Rice is a staple food for

most Filipinos across the country. The nation’s per capita rice consumption rose from 93.2 kg

per year in 1995 to 123.3 kg per year in 2009. (ricepedia.org)

Central Luzon continued to be the top producer of palay in the country contributing 18.9

percent to the total volume of production in 2017. Annual volume of palay production in the

region was estimated at 3,634,807 metric tons. It accelerated to 8.7 percent compared to previous

year’s level of 3,342,883 metric tons. The volume of production of irrigated palay was posted at

3,342,794 metric tons, up by 7.3 percent in 2017 compared with that in 2016. For rainfed palay,

the volume of production was 292,013 metric tons, a 28.1 percent increase from 228,043 metric

tons in 2016. Of the total volume of palay production in in Central Luzon in 2017, 92.0 percent

were irrigated and 8.0 percent were rainfed. In 2016, irrigated palay accounted for 93.2 percent

to the total production, and rainfed palay comprised the 6.8 percent. Among the seven (7)

provinces in the region, Nueva Ecija accounted more than half (51.8%) of the region’s total

volume of palay production in 2017. Nueva Ecija is the province with the highest rice production

in the Philippines and is widely referred to as the “rice bowl” of the country. (psa.gov.ph)

Rice is normally grown as an annual plant, although in tropical areas like in the

Philippines and it can survive as a perennial and can produce a ration crop for 30 years. Rice

cultivation is well-suited to regions with low labor costs and high rainfall, as it is labor-intensive

to cultivate. However, rice can be grown practically anywhere, even on a steep hill or mountain
area with the use of water-controlling terrace systems. Corn, like rice, has been extensively

farmed in the Philippines for centuries.

Most of the products the country exports are agricultural products, among them the

maize, otherwise known as corn. Although it doesn’t belong in the top 10 of agricultural

products, it still accounts for 10 percent of the country’s top agricultural exports. Maize

production in the Philippines increased at an annual rate of 1.7% over a 20-year period (1980-

2000). After production peaked in 1990 at 4.9 million metric tons, a sharp decline was posted in

1998 when the El Niño phenomenon affected the region. Total area planted to maize was also

highest in 1990, at 3.8 million hectares, but was observed to be on the decline at 1.9% per year

from 1985 to 2001 (Gonzales and Lapiña, 2003).

The corn and rice are just two of the most widely produced grain crops in the country,

mung beans, peanuts, string beans, etc. are also popularly known. Mung bean (Vignaradiata (L.)

Wilczek) is one of the most important legume crops in South and Southeast Asia. It is in the

Legume family of plants and is closely related to adzuki and cowpea (in the same genus but

different species). It is a warm season annual, highly branched having trifoliate leaves like the

other legumes. The plant is upright and vine types of growth habit occur in it, with plants varying

from one to five feet in length.

In the Philippines, data from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics show that the highest

volume of production for the past five years in the Philippines was achieved in 2011, with 45,283

metric tons from the total production area of 32, 960 hectares. In 2012, area planted to mung

bean was 44, 324 hectares and total volume of production was 32,364 metric tons with the

province of Isabela as the top mung bean producer contributing 26% to the country’s production.
However, national average yield per hectare remains quite low at 0.73 metric ton. The

Philippines imported 30,736 mt of dried mung bean worth US$5.4M in 2006; up by 0.13% in

tonnage and by 11.7% in value than in 2005. In 2006, the country exported 20 mt of dried mung

bean worth US$27,553; down by 86% in tonnage and by 45% in export earnings compared to

2005. San Mateo, Isabela is the biggest producer of mung beans in the Philippines with a

production of 800 to 1,000 kilos/ha at the prevailing price of P32 per kilo. This translates to

incomes ranging from P25, 600 to P32, 000 per hectare. This means a P224-million additional

income for local farmers during summer. The town has more than 7,000 hectares of farms

planted to mung beans during the dry season and it is now declared as the “Mung bean Capital of

the Philippines”. (http://bpi.da.gov.ph/)

Behind the increasing crop production of the Philippines is the technology used in

agriculture. Agricultural technology refers to technology for the production of machines used on

a farm to help with farming. Agricultural machines have been designed for practically every

stage of the agricultural process.

The sad reality is evident in the market shelves and the crop fields. Most Philippine

crops, notably rice, still cost more than Thailand or Vietnam rice primarily because of high

production cost. Filipino farmers spend around P11 ($ 0.25) to produce one kilogram of rice

while their Thai and Vietnamese counterparts spend the equivalent of P8.40 ($0.19) and P5.60

($0.13), respectively, according to the Philippines' Department of Agriculture (DA).

Rice fields in other Southeast Asian countries are better irrigated. Farmers receive

subsidies to cover costs of buying fertilizer and seeds. Machines used for all levels of agricultural

production decrease their production cost and lead to better harvest.

– is the biggest factor in jacking up production cost for rice farmers. Reducing the cost of labor is

where mechanization comes in.

Mechanization, or the use of machines in farming, can bring down the cost of labor

particularly for labor-intensive crops like rice, mung beans and corn. But the Philippines is

lagging behind in terms of mechanization. (rappler.com)

As the production of these crops that are being produced increases because of the

different technology that is being applied or used, likewise giving birth for new challenges on

how to deal or handle tons of grains of rice and corn during the postharvest process which is the

drying and storing the grains. Grains must be dried to maintain good quality, storability and high

commercial value.

The traditional practice of grain drying is to spread crop on the ground, thus exposing it

to the effects of sun, wind and rain. The logic of this is inescapable; the sun supplies an

appreciable and inexhaustible source of heat to evaporate moisture from the grain, and the

velocity of the wind to remove the evaporated moisture.

The method in collecting grains that are sun dried in concrete pavement in all rice

farming in the Philippines is very much traditional and makes use of metal scoop. This method

is labor consuming especially when unexpected rainfall comes. Farmers have to employ more

number of people to collect these grains immediately or else, drying process would be useless.

Thus, farmers and retails of grains will spend more money for the labor and often leads to

contamination of the grain with dust and dirt in the concrete pavements. In collecting the sun

dried grains in concrete pavements, farmers usually used the traditional method which is using a
dust pan like scoop. This method requires high manual labor and it is not dependable when an

unexpected heavy rainfall pours down and farmers have to hire more people in order to collect

the grains quickly before the rain falls.

Thus, this problem encourages the researchers to create new technology for the farmer

which is the Mechanized Grain Collector. As the Mechanized Grain Collector passes through the

scattered grains, it brushes them towards a suction tube wherein they are sucked in quickly. The

impeller creates a vacuum which lifts the grains to the discharge. This machine has the same

principle with the vacuum cleaners used in homes and offices. It creates a negative pressure

inside the impeller and suck in ambient air. The ambient air being sucked lifts the grain into the

tube to the impeller and discharges it to the container.

It is expected that the machine would be beneficial to the farmers especially to those who

cultivate mainly on grains. And it is also expected to hasten the collection of grains especially on

rainy season at very cheap cost.

Statement of Objectives

This study aims to develop a Mechanized Grain Collector that aids in collecting the grain

during the process of drying.

Specifically, it seeks to achieve the following objectives:

1. To design a Mechanized Grain Collector.

2. To fabricate a Mechanized Grain Collector.

Collector.

4. To determine the cost benefit analysis of the Mechanized Grain Collector.

Time and Place of the Study

This study will be conducted during the school year 2019-2020 at Brgy. Guerrero,
Bauang, La Union and will be evaluated at Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University-Mid
La Union Campus, Catbangen, City of San Fernando, La Union