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Home Biotechnology -

People’s Green Revolution

Dr Abe V Rotor

We wake up to the fresh aroma of coffee, chocolate, vanilla, the cured taste of dried tapa, tinapa, ham and bacon – all these are products of a mysterious process we generally call fermentation.

Aged wine is mellower, cured tobacco is more aromatic, naturally ripened fruits are sweeter, dried prunes, raisin and dates have higher sugar content and have longer shelf life. Seasoned toyo, bagoong and patis make fine cuisine, so with vanilla, chili, laurel, banana blossom, and annatto.

Why many foods taste better after allowing them to stand for sometime! Take suman, tupig, puto, bibingka, and the like. The real taste of pinakbet comes out an hour or two after it has been cooked. So with the Ilocos dinuguan.

Thanks to the myriads of beneficial microorganisms, and the complex chemistry working in our favor even while we are asleep. Indeed Nature works silently through her invisible agents and processes.

The vast potential uses of microorganisms - bacteria, algae, fungi and the like - in providing food, medicine and better environment to supply the requirements of our fast growing population and standard of living are being tapped by biotechnology. Biotechnology hand in hand with genetic engineering dominate the Green Revolution of this century – the fourth since Neolithic time.

Let me cite particular areas of biotechnology in which small entrepreneurs play a vital role and which they have proven themselves successful in one way or the other. The first group involves the production of alcoholic drinks and vinegar through fermentation. These products are

§ Tapoy (rice wine of the Cordillera equivalent to the Japanese kampei)
§ Basi (sugarcane)
§ Lambanog (distilled coconut wine)
§ Tuba (young wine from coconut)
§ Layaw (nipa)
§ Bahalina (coconut and tangal)
§ Fruit wine (kasoy, bignay, strawberry, pineapple, etc.)
§ Root crop wine (potato, kamote, cassava, yakon)
§ Beer (malted corn, rice, sorghum, barley, wheat, rye)
§ Vinegar (nipa, sugarcane, coconut, various fruits)

 

Basi, pride of the Ikocos Region; and rice wine, indigenous drink of the Cordillera region.

With readily available raw materials and simple tools used, brewing is a practical industry. More so, with the simplicity of fermentation itself - which is the conversion of sugar into ethanol through fermentation with yeast, as shown in this general formula?

C6H12O6 ------> 2C2H5OH + 2CO2
Sugar to Wine (yeast fermentation)

This equation applies to all kinds of wine and beer in the world, varying only in the source of materials and technical aspects, cultural uniqueness notwithstanding. This is why wine making is universal. It is engrained in culture and history, and in all human activities. No ceremony is without wine. It is symbolic of religious faith and belief. And while there are popular brands in the market, still the best wine is found in the farmer’s cellar in Europe and Asia, or elsewhere.

The brewed product is either consumed immediately or allowed to age. Aging improves quality and lengthens the shelf life of the product. 

Wine from local fruits

Wine making is an art, and a personalized enterprise, with each vintage or cellar having a distinctive quality trademark. Bordeaux in France for example, is famous for brandy, while the Scotch Whiskey remains a top grade liquor made from grains. Similarly we have basi in Ilocos, bahalina in the Visayas and lambanog in Southern Tagalog.

Wine does not go to waste if it fails to meet standards. And even if the brew is left unattended. Nature makes wine to vinegar. Vin-egar means sour wine. In chemistry it is oxidized ethyl alcohol, the product of which is acetic acid, as shown in this formula, similarly a universal one.

C2H5OH + O2 ---> CH3COOH + H2O
Wine or Ethyl Alcohol to Acetic Acid
 (Acetobacter aceti) and oxidation

Vinegar is perhaps the most common food preservative and additive. It is often associated with the local source such as Sukang Iloko and Sukang Paombong. Or material – sasa from nipa, pineapple vinegar, apple cider vinegar, etc.

Vinegar has many uses outside of the kitchen. Weed killer, bleaching agent, pesticide, drainage declogger, odor remover, etc. Many industries rely on this organic substance from food to textile to metallurgy.

The second group of products of village biotechnology are beverages, food condiments, tobacco and betel for chewing. Tea, coffee, fruit juice and chocolate, in this order, make up the world’s top beverages, thus pointing out the vast opportunities of biotechnology in this area.

§ Kapeng barako (Batangas and Cavite)
§ Cacao (Batangas, Mindanao)
§ Vanilla (Mindanao)
§ Tsaa (Batangas)
§ Fruit puree (mango, guyabano, pineapple, etc.,

   Southern Tagalog, Mindanao)
§ Bagoong and patis (Navotas, Balayan, Dagupan)
§ Kesong Puti (Laguna)
§ Betel (Cordillera, Laguna, Ilocos)
§ Ketsup (banana, tomato)
§ Rolled tobacco (Cagayan Valley, Ilocos)Toyo 

   (Southern Tagalog, Mindanao)

Like in the first group, these products are area-specific which point out to their indigenous production and processing, so with their patronage. Rolled tobacco or pinadis, for example, has a special market for old people who are used to the product – and not to the younger generation. This is also true with betel or nganga.

On the other hand, bagoong and patis, which used to be a specialty among Ilocanos, are now marketed abroad. So with kapeng barako a local coffee which is mainly grown in the highlands of Batangas and Tagaytay?

Fruit puree and fruit preserve, though relatively new, are amazingly growing fast, as people are shunning away from carbonated drinks. Because of high demand, these products became a boom to small growers, who recently are becoming mere conduits or raw products suppliers of big companies, instead of making and marketing the finished products themselves.

The third and largest group of village biotechnology products is in processed food.

§ Puto or rice cake, very popular among Filipinos
§ Bibingka (rice)
§ Maja (corn starch)
§ Burong manggang paho, mustasa (pickled mango, mustard)
§ Burong Isda (dalag and rice)
§ Hamon (manok, baboy, pato) ham
§ Tocino, longganisa
§ Itlog na pula and century egg
§ Balot and Penoy (incubated duck egg)
§ Tokwa (bean curd)
§ Taosi (fermented black bean)
§ Talangka (crab paste)
§ Pickles (papaya, carrot, amargoso, onion, cucumber, etc.)
§ Toge (mungo sprout)
§ Cakes (banana, cassava)
§ Ripening of fruits (with madre de cacao leaves)

Smoked Fish

Food processing constitutes the bulk of village biotechnology in developing countries, on both domestic and commercial scales. Like in the other groups, these undertakings are seldom organized as formal establishments; rather they fall under the category of informal economics which is life line of the people especially in these critical times.

The pioneering group, are the so-called “One-Celled Protein” food, a new term in food production by algae, fungi and bacteria. Actually many of these have long been known even in primitive societies because they grow in the wild.

· Spirulina (blue-green alga or BGA)
· Chlorella (green alga)
· Nostoc (BGA as food and fertilizer)

· Anabaena (BGA in symbiosis with Azolla a floating fern, 

  for fertilizer and food)
· Nata - nata de coco, nata de piña (Leuconostoc mesenteroides, 

  a capsule bacterium)
· Mushrooms –Pleurotus (abalone mushroom), Shitaki (black mushroom),

  Volvariella (banana mushrrom), Agaricus (rice hay mushroom) PHOTO,

  Auricularia or “tainga ng daga,” and many other edible mushrooms,

  cultivated or wild.

Let’s strive to make village biotechnology truly a Green Revolution of, for and by the people. ~