The man, credited for pioneering the composting and recycling movement in the country, once picked up a handful of earth, sniffed it and fell in love with it.

"That moment was his epiphany," says Alex’s daughter May, referring to the incident when her late father discovered his affinity with nature. "He smelled all the dead things that breathed life into the soil and his hair stood on end."

From that moment on, Alex vowed to do his share in preserving nature.

Born to Justice Alex Reyes and Doña Engracia "Aling Asiang" Reyes of the Aristocrat Restaurant, Handy and his wife Nena raised 12 children.

His love affair with the soil gave birth to the Handy Shredder machine — a shredder, decorticator, chipper and pulverizer rolled into one.

His invention, which was patented in 1997, was a fulfillment of his desire to "return to the soil what has been taken from it." The invention became a member of the family that his children now fondly refer to it as the "13th child."

Alex went to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to study biodynamic farming. It was there that he fell in love with the soil.

Alex wanted to teach people to feed the soil, thus, upon returning to the Philippines, he toured the country to teach composting. He believed that feeding the earth with chemicals was as bad as poisoning the human body.

In his studies, he experimented with shredders trying to process coconut husks and shells which are ideal ingredients for com-posting and soil conditioning.

None could do the job so he decided to make his own. Alex’s goal was to make a machine that was powerful and versatile enough to process coconut waste and other materials yet simple enough to operate and maintain.

As he was not an engineer, he worked by trial and error for five years to develop what is now known as the Handy 4-in-1 Machine, the only Filipino invented and patented chipper, shredder, decorticator and pulverizer.

The Handy machine has sparked an agricultural revolution. Its ability to process not just garden waste such as dried leaves, coconut fronds, and the like, but also waste of various textures and density such as wood, newspapers, coconut shells, glasses, hard plastic, animal bones, to name a few.

The Handy 4-in-1 machine is particularly useful in compost production. Whereas the traditional composting method usually takes as long as six months, the Handy 4-in-1 shortens the process to 2 weeks.

ORGANIC FARMING

Organic farming actually enriches the soil and restores balance to lands with high levels of chemical content as a result of years of pesticide and synthetic fertilizer use.

For all the benefits organic farming contributes to health and environment, organic farm products have yet to enter the mainstream market. This was the agricultural predicament that Alex sought to change.

The success of his design added more fuel to his mission. Again he took to traveling the country and teaching the need for composting not just for the farms but for households and barangays as well.

Two years after Alex’s death, his family continues his legacy by ensuring that more farmers are able to avail of the Handy 4-in-1 machine through the family-managed business Handy Four–In–One, Inc.

This year, the Reyes family has launched a project that would have made the late patriarch proud: Awarding a Handy 4-in-1 unit to a deserving farmer who embodies the same selfless dedication to preserve the environment as exemplified by the late inventor.

At the awarding ceremony held recently at the Reyes’ residence in New Manila, Quezon City, the family, led by matriarch Nena, paid homage to the Handy machine inventor.

"Alex’s main worry was that in 20 years, the earth would be full of garbage. Composting of all biodegradable matter is the answer to the garbage problem and this is made easy by the Handy machine," said Alex’s widow, Nena.

The Handy 4–in–1 unit went to Ambrosio "Pat" Acosta of Benguet who is a proud owner of The Master’s Garden, a 3,000-meter organic farm in La Trinidad Valley in the Mountain Province.

Pat not only manages his farm but also trains fellow farmers on organic farming. A horticulturist by career, he already owned a Handy 4-in-1 which he bought more than a year ago.

Like Alex, Pat also tried to work with other shredders in the past which, to his dismay, were not able to suit his demands.

"When I finally got my Handy shredder, we cleared a lot of farm debris and converted it into compost. Moreover, the speed by which the Handy machine converts organic material into very valuable fertilizer makes it an indispensable farm tool," explained Pat.

Pat plans to use the Handy 4-in-1 unit to introduce more farmers in the Cordilleras to organic farming.

The Handy 4-in-1 machine comes in several models with various output capacity whether for use in the homes, farms and orchards, markets, and barangays/municipalities.

For training on organic farming and composting, call Pat Acosta at The Master’s Garden 0917925-8499 or 0917646-8134.