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Grains Museum Re-opened After 30 Years
Dr Abe V Rotor

Recently the author received an invitation to witness the re-opening of the museum at least in part (leaving behind for renovation the seven dioramas depicting the major features of the rice industry). This development signifies the revival of interest under the present administration in pursuing the original objectives of the museum, which the author as curator upheld until its closure soon after the EDSA Revolution in 1986. The re-opening after nearly 30 years could make history for the Grains Museum to be a unifying element of a politically divided nation.

Featured in the Grainsn, official publication of the National Food Authority, the NFA Grains Industry Museum with address at the Regional Office in Cabanatuan City (NE) is now inviting students, scholars, researchers, and ordinary folks, even while restoration is on-going.

The feature story, December 2016 (Vol. 44, No. 4), written by Ms Lina G Reyes and Ms Josephine C Bacungan, is quoted in part, as follows:

"Old farm tools and artifacts had been sitting quietly, gathering dust at the dilapidated museum of the Central Luzon Regional office in Cabanatuan City. National Food Authority Grains Industry Museum was a brainchild of then NFA Extension Director Abercio V Rotor with a vision to highlight the evolution of the rice industry through various images on production, post-harvest activities, processing, storage and marketing /distribution of rice and other grains . It was intended to serve as NFA's contribution to the preservation of cultural traditions particularly in the agricultural landscape. It operated for sometime but was closed down due to lack of funds and trained personnel to maintain it. But thanks to he history-loving team of Directoe Amadeo de Guzman and Assistant Regional Director Serafin Manalili, and then Asst Director Mar Alvarez, et al ... "(the whole staff of the NFA regional and NFA provincial office.)

Brown rice or pinawa dehusker at the former Farmers' Museum

of the National Food Authority in Cabanatuan City. ca. 1981

Operated by hand this native rice mill made of wood and bamboo separates the husk from the grain, leaving the grain intact with its bran. The bran contains mineral, vitamins, oil, and digestible fiber which conventional rice mills removed during polishing. Polishing removes the bran leaving the grain white and polished. In the process, much of the grains is broken, particularly the defective and immature ones chalky and powdery. It is the bran that gives the nutritious tiki-tiki which is extracted in the final boiling stage in cooking rice. Tiki-tiki was developed by a Filipino scientist, Dr. Manuel Zamora, a cheap and practical source of infant food supplement which saved thousands of babies during the second World War. It was later popularized as United Tiki-tiki. .

Among the antique farming tools in the Farmers' Museum are the popular suyod of three designs. One with iron pegs (left) is used on wet paddy. It serves as harrow and leveler. The second is made of bamboo with natural and embedded pegs used as harrow for the upland. At the foreground is another type of harrow with multiple pegs arranged on rows.

This photo was taken just after the inauguration of the Museum (c.1981), with Dr Romualdo M del Rosario, deputy director of the National Museum, as consultant. With him is a member of the NFA staff in charge of the museum

The ingenuity at the grassroots cannot be underestimated. Farmers' technology developed with the birth of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent thousands of years ago, and its rise in many parts of the world. The commonality of inventions is more on function, rather than scientific explanation, the latter serving as basis in improvement and diversification.

NOTE: The Farmers' Museum of the then National Grains Authority, now National Food Authority, was put up in response to the administration's thrust in food self-sufficiency. It was during the time the country gave emphasis on developing cultural pride as a nation and people, as evidenced by the expansion of the National Museum, the putting up of the Philippine Convention Center, and the National Art Center on Mt Makiling, among others, during the administration of the late President Ferdinand E Marcos. The Farmers' Museum occupied the right wing of the Regional NFA Building in Cabanatuan City for two decades, until it closed down. It was once a pride of the agency, the centerpiece of visitation by foreign dignitaries, convention participants, tourists, professors and students, and most especially farmers who found the museum not only as a showcase of the agricultural industry, but as a hallmark of their being the "backbone of the nation." AVR

There are seven dioramas, four of these are shown in these old photographs. A wall mural meets the visitor on entering the museum. Indigenous farm tools and implements are lined on the foreground. The dioramas are grouped at the center of the cubicles.

The wall mural no longer. The wood panel was

heavily damaged and had to be replaced

The flagship of the Marcos administration Masagana 99, a nationwide

rice production program that made the Philippines a net exporter

of rice in the later part of the seventies.

Rainfed (sahod ulan) farming dominates the uplands and hillsides.

Rice yield depends on generous amount and distribution of rainfall

during the monsoon. Its uncertainty has imbibed deep respect to

Providence, particularly among the minorities like the Yakans.

World famous rice terraces in Ifugao and other parts of the Cordillera have been declared World Heritage by UNESCO, a feat unequaled in any part of the world. Rice farming on the terraces is as old as the terraces which have been estimated to be as old as 5000 years, perhaps as old as the Pyramids of Egypt, much older that the Great Wall of China. Science has yet to learn the

secrets of the ancestral farmers.