HOW TO MAKE SOY MILK AND YOGURT

My leg injury has forced me to stay at home this last two weeks but it has not prevented me from doing more hands-on technology acquisition. I had been intrigued about the soy yogurt which they say is easy to make using almost the same method used for milk. I already know how to make soy milk and had bought last year, a blender with an attachment specifically designed to extract milk from soybeans. The attachment has simplified soy milk making and it takes just about 2 minutes to make a batch of soy milk.

Begin by making soy milk:

To make one liter of soy milk, you would need about 125 grams of dried soybeans soaked for about 12 hours where water is replaced two to three times. For the standard blender, liquify the soaked soy milk until the whole batch is finely ground. Strain the milk in a clean cotton cloth (katsa which is flour sack cut into manageable size is best and cheapest material). Set aside the solids which is called “okara” in other countries and “sapal” in our dialect. It is protein rich and is added to meat as extender or can be cooked solely as a burger. Boil the soymilk for 15 minutes to fully cook it. You would be able to get about one liter of milk after the process.

To make soy milk yogurt:

Add about two (2) tablespoons of sugar to the soy milk and stir until dissolved. Sugar will act as feed for the lacto-baccilus that coagulates the milk into yogurt. Cool soy milk to 45% Celsius and add yogurt starter and place this inside a yogurt incubator. I made mine out of a styrofoam ice chest where I installed a thermostat so that the temperature inside the incubator is maintained at 46-50 degrees Celsius. Don't cover the lid of the soymilk tightly or if safe or hygienic, remove the cover to allow air circulation. Incubate for 6-8 hours or overnight. By morning, you will have soy yogurt.

If you don't have an incubator, just look for an ice ice chest. To maintain the desired temperature, heat water to about 55 degrees Celsius and pour inside the ice chest and place the container of soymilk on top using some containers to act as pontoon. Check temperature every 3 hours and add heated water when temperature has dropped. I am into my third batch of soy yogurt which probably cost me just P15.00 per liter.

STAND ASIDE HYBRID RICE, HERE COMES OPEN POLLINATED BSD-300

Hybrid rices are now the talk of the town with its potential to double and even triple the yields of rice farms. It is being promoted by Asian governments as the answer to the perennial problem of shortage. With the breeding perfected by a Chinese scientist several decades ago, hybrid rice seeds are now a monopoly of large companies mostly multi-nationals which saw mega income by cornering the production of seeds.

Hybrid rice seed production is a highly technical process that needs expertise. But the rewards are high because of the margin of profit. Even producing a mere 2 tons of rice seeds per hectare, a multi-natonal company can easily gross P400,000 per hectare every six months, more than what they can get from a hectare of export banana. Thus, large business jumped into the band wagon. The small farmer having limited expertise in hybridization will have no option but to buy the seeds being sold at exorbitant prices.

Hybrid rice seed companies claim a range of 9-16 metric tons of rice produced per hectare, while open pollinated varieties released by rice research institutions can barely reach seven metric tons at controlled conditions and much less under farmer conditions. Thus farmers are attracted to buying hybrid rice seeds because of the prospect of having higher yield that translate to higher income perunit of farm land.

What if farmers can grow their own open pollinated rice strains that can approximate if not out yield hybrid rice varieties? What if these rice varieties are not only high producers but have good eating qualities as well? The benefits are practically limitless! They will then get out from the clutches of large business selling hybrid rice seeds and they can produce their own seeds as well as sell to other rice farmers at a more affordable price. Hybrid seeds sold by multinational companies cost P3,000 per 15 kilograms or a whooping P200/kilogram. A farmer needs 15 kilograms of rice seeds per hectare. If farmers can produce their own they can under cut these commercial sellers at even half the price.

Comes now BSD-300, an open pollinated rice variety developed by Freddie Noriel of Nueva Ecija coming from Indonesia. Noriel painstakingly improved the original strain by selection and the

strain can now produce an average of 300 cavans per hectare maily due to its long panicles and large grains growing from a dense multiple tiller.

Planted like the hybrid seeds, meaning about 15 kilograms of seeds per hectare at one seedling per hill spaces about 25 x 25 centimeters, the strain is so vigorous that at maximum growth stage, the productive tillers practically crowd each other, even more densely than hybrid varieties.

I bought a few kilograms of seeds from a Manila dealer last February and it was only last June that we planted this at Brgy. Lapayon, Leganes because nobody was interested to lend or lease me their land in my home town. We simulated farmer conditions, meaning, sparingly applying chemical fertilizers at a rate of only 2 bags of 14-14-14 and one bag urea per hectare. The farmer cooperator also insisted not to use any chemical pesticide since he intended to mill the rice for their own consumption if we cannot sell the produce as seeds. For more than two decades now, my friend had been eating pesticide free rice.

The BSD-300 plants are now 45 days old and almost at panicle emergence stage. Comparing the growth so far with those of the neighbors, one can immediately notice the difference. The tillers of BSD-300 are twice as many and robust as the open pollinated variety. The leaves are wider and longer. The neighboring OP had already been sprayed 5 times with insecticide while the BSD 300 never got a single spray because the farmer never believed in pesticides as an option.

BSD-300 compares well with this hybrid rice variety

According to the developer, BSD-300 will mature at 105 days compared to most hybrids which mature in 120 days or so. We are now observing other parameters such as the length of the panicles and the number of grains per panicle. Also eagerly awaited is the ultimate indicator which is the actual yield in the 1,000 sq.meters which will simply be extrapolated ten times to get the yield per hectare. If Noriel is to be believed, this batch of BSD-300 will yield about 350 cavans per hectare, comparative if not better than any hybrid variety now being planted in the country.