The Philippines will start selling a recently developed plant growth chemical made from algae to rice farmers as early as this year, Carlo A. Arcilla, the director general of the Philippine Nuclear Research institute (PNRI), told Sputnik
VIENNA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th September, 2019) The Philippines will start selling a recently developed plant growth chemical made from algae to rice farmers as early as this year, Carlo A. Arcilla, the director general of the Philippine Nuclear Research institute (PNRI), told Sputnik."It is locally developed and farmers now have access to it. It is being commercialized this year ... Hopefully, it can be priced lower for farmers to buy. Farmers in the Philippines are the poorest segment of the population," Arcilla said on the sidelines of the IAEA General Conference in Vienna.
The official noted that the Philippines was open to sharing the technology with other countries, and even adjust it to other crops, such as corn, sugar cane and others.
"It is actually very significant because it addresses an important aspect of the Philippine agriculture. We are rice eating and producing country, and we also have 20 typhoons in a year ... It is a straight-forward, very simple nuclear application technology that has incredible impact," he stressed.
Arcilla added that irradiation with gamma rays could also be used to process food, for example, Philippine mangos so that they could make it shelves in remote countries without rotting, noting that Russia's Rosatom State Corporation was partnering with the Philippines' A Brown company to develop private irradiation facilities in the country for these purposes.
"We [PNRI] will be regulating this. But I know that for the past year steps have been taken to actually move forward in this," he noted.
The Philippines scientists have recently developed a plant growth promoter from an algae extract, carrageenan, which makes rice plants resilient to typhoons and increases yield by 20-30 percent when processed with radiation.
