When success is the only option, failure is out of the picture. Ozamiz City Integrated Cooperative (OCIC) never gave up on a technology problem and DOST-X never gave up assistance until the SETUP project is successful. The willingness to change and the flexibility to adopt are always the winning measures to grasp success in technology adoption.
Ozamiz City Integrated Cooperative (OCIC) is into rice milling and rice trading and has members that are mostly palay farmers. With more than decades of operation, OCIC realized that there is a need to embrace new technology particularly for the drying of rice grains. In 2012, OCIC’s Manager, Ms. Grace Monarca sought the assistance of the Department of Science and Technology-10 through its Provincial S&T Center Misamis Occidental under the Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program (SETUP). The assistance was to mechanize the drying facility. However, with the upgraded mechanical dryer, project operation for three years had not been swiftly carried out as there were glitches on the machine. Nevertheless, OCIC continued its operation and still certain that technology can give the cooperative a breakthrough.
For DOST Misamis Occidental, assistance to OCIC was not the case of “Plant and Forget", which Ms. Monarca was thankful for. In 2018, under the Local Grant-Aid program of DOST, the drying facility was rehabilitated to enable OCIC become fully operational free from technology glitches. “Nalipay mi na wala mi gibiyaan sa DOST hangtud na namaayo ang dryer” (We’re grateful that DOST did not leave us until the dryer is fully operational). The mechanical dryer since its rehabilitation has been of great help to its operation. Drying hours are shortened from 2-3 days to 14 hours, dried rice grains will not result to broken rice after milling and it has no scorching smell.
In October and November 2018 just before the harvest season ended, the cooperative was able to use the rehabilitated mechanical dryer and dried 1,000 sacks or 60,000 kgs of rice grains and in April 2019, OCIC was able to use the mechanical dryer unhampered. Ms. Monarca was on near misty-eyed expressing how grateful she was that a year before her retirement, the drying facility became fully operational. The project is not only her legacy to the cooperative, but it made her realized to consider failure only an option and she chose success. “Bisan mo retire nako, active gihapon ko mosuporta sa coop. Nakita nako dako ug matabang ang technology sama sa pag upgrade sa galingan. Naay mga problema pero dili lang mo surrender” (Even after my retirement, I will be active in supporting the cooperative. Technology, such us upgrading of rice mill will help improve the operation of the cooperative. Problems may occur, but it should not stop the operation), Ms. Monarca noted.
Surely, it is always a choice to see beyond failure and to look at the inherent beneficial effect of technology it could offer to ones business operation.
