The Department of Science and Technology Negros Oriental Provincial Science and Technology (DOST-NegOr) has taken disaster preparedness up a notch in the province by training key people in Emergency Food Reserve (EFR) production 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 (munggo).

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 also opens up enterpreneurial opportunities for community livelihood generators and individual food processors.

Said DOST-NegOr training had 25 participants from several government, academic, and private entities, including food manufacturing enterprises. It was held recently at the Nutrition and Dietetics (ND) Department Laboratory of Silliman University (SU) in Dumaguete City.

“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 Mr. Alvyn Klein Mana-ay of Silliman University, 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 SU-ND, including Mana-ay, Dr. Michele Naranjo, and Ruth Ann Entea who all served as resource persons in the recent training.

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 the Sagip flour, and its byproducts that included chocolate bars, polvoron, and dried noodles.

Meanwhile, a total of 30 entrepreneurs from micro, small and medium enterprises attended the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) Awareness Seminar conducted on recentlyat the Nutrition and Dietetics Department at Silliman University.

“Food safety refers to the elimination of hazards that may make food injurious to the health of the consumers,” said Mrs. Evelyn Fajardo, one of the resource persons. “ From farm to plate, let us make our food safe.”

She added that many of the potential hazards in a processing plant are prevented by using a standard set of principles and hygienic practices for the manufacturing and handling of food.

Resource persons AnaVee Riconalla and GeraldineQuiñones of the NOFST discussed GMP relevance, implication and hazards, personal hygiene, and environmental and industrial hygiene. They also demonstrated the proper handwashing technique.

The Basic Food Safety Seminar and EFR Training are part of a series of trainings set this year by the DOST-NegOr in parnertship by SU-ND and the NOFST. #emergencyfood #dostPH #sagipnutriflour #dostnegor #gmp


DOST NIR OIC-ARD FAS Atty. Gilbert R. Arbon (leftmost) with the participants of the EFR training. With him is Dr. Roslyn D. Tambago, (second from right) OIC-PSTC Negros Oriental.


Mr. Arvyn Klein Mana-ay, one of the resource persons during the training, explained to the participants the proper way to prepare and cook noodles as an emergency food reserve.