AN agricultural engineer in UP Los Baños (UPLB) has developed a small-scale corn mill suitable for village-level operation. Engineer Balbino Geronimo of the College of Engineering and Agro-industrial Technology had in mind the country’s small corn-producing villages when he designed the mini corn mill.
In the Philippines, people in certain barangays (villages) plant and consume white corn as their staple food. These barangays are usually in remote areas and thus have difficulty accessing commercial corn mills. In these areas, putting up a large-scale corn mill would cost millions of pesos and may not be cost-effective or even feasible.
As a result, most of the farmer’s white corn produce is traded instead of consumed. The farmer would have to buy milled corn or rice for his family, Geronimo explained.
The mini corn mill developed at UPLB can process corn grains, dried to 14 percent moisture content, at a rate of 91 kilograms per hour. The dried corn grain is loaded into a hopper that puts the grain inside the milling drum. Before the corn grits are passed onto the sieve tray, they are cleaned by a blower.
The grits are then graded by size by the sieve tray, producing grits with sizes #10, 12, and 14. All of the grits, including the produced corn bran, exit through separate outlets and are collected in pails or sacks.
Although only 42 percent of the grains milled become grits, the by-products may also be used for food and feeds, hence, nothing is wasted.
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