Students and faculty from Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University's Mid La Union Campus (DMMMSU-MLUC) visited Benguet State University's Food Science Research and Innovation Center (FSRIC) and Agri-based Technology Business Incubator on March 12, 2026. The group was led by faculty member and plant tour coordinator Sherry Lou B. Fabros and welcomed at BSU by FSRIC Director Lesley Dale G. Umayat, who provided an orientation on BSU's research and extension services before the visit began.

The visit is a small but telling example of something the Northern Luzon innovation ecosystem needs more of: universities in different regions treating each other as resources rather than operating in isolation.

What the Visit Covered

The DMMMSU-MLUC delegation toured food processing facilities in groups, observing machinery, production protocols, and quality assurance systems relevant to food technology coursework. The session concluded with a walkthrough of BSU's strawberry farm — one of the university's most recognized applied agriculture programs and a direct connection to Benguet's identity as the country's primary highland vegetable and strawberry producer.

FSRIC Director Umayat's orientation framed the visit within BSU's broader research and extension mandate — giving the visiting students context not just on the equipment they were seeing, but on how the facility sits within a larger ecosystem of food science research, technology transfer, and community partnership. That framing turns a field trip into something more useful: a window into how a research institution connects its work to real production and market outcomes.

Why the Cross-Regional Dimension Matters

DMMMSU is anchored in Ilocos and La Union. BSU is the primary agricultural research university in the Cordillera. Both are state universities in Northern Luzon serving overlapping sectors — food processing, agribusiness, and agricultural technology — but they operate in different regional administrative contexts. A visit like this, modest as it appears, is the kind of cross-regional knowledge exchange that rarely gets formalized but quietly builds the relationships that lead to research partnerships, shared curricula, and eventually joint programs.

BSU's policy of actively welcoming benchmarking visits from schools, LGUs, national line agencies, and NGOs through its University Public Affairs Office is worth highlighting here. The university has built an open-door infrastructure for exactly this kind of collaboration — and it extends an open invitation to any institution interested in visiting its facilities, with requests encouraged at least two weeks in advance.

What This Means for the Broader Ecosystem

Northern Luzon's universities have more to offer each other than they currently exchange. BSU has deep food science and highland agriculture expertise. DMMMSU has strong food technology and engineering programs. The Cordillera and Ilocos regions share agricultural value chains — strawberries, vegetables, processed foods — that both sets of students will work in after graduation. More cross-institutional visits, joint research projects, and shared incubator access between these universities would strengthen the region's food and agri-tech pipeline far more efficiently than each institution building parallel capabilities alone.

Schools, LGUs, and organizations in Northern Luzon interested in conducting benchmarking visits at BSU can reach out through the University Public Affairs Office. Visit requests should be submitted at least two weeks in advance, with the number of participants and a contact number included to facilitate coordination.

Source: Benguet State University