Awards/Recognitions

*Achievement Award in Technology (1984) from Crop Science Society of the Philippines         

* Ramon Magsaysay Award 
(1985) for International Understanding
*DOST-PPM Award in Science and Technology for Private Enterprise (1987) from the Department of Science and Technology
*Presidential Citation (1989) from Her Excellency Madame Philippine President Corazon C. Aquino
*World Food Day Silver Medal (1991) from the regional office of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization 
*Regional Likas Yaman Award (1997) from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources

A plot of 10 hectares (which has since grown to 19 hectares) was purchased.  The land included underdeveloped lowlands as well as impoverished and denuded hillsides. Watson named the site the MBRLC and began in earnest an animal production program for small farmers.

In 1977, Dr. Warlito A. Laquihon and his wife, Ellen, joined the staff as Associate Director to Mr. Watson.  Dr. Laquihon helped form and implement the PEDAL (Plan for Extension, Development and Leadership) program and proposed the acronym REDEEM (Research, Extension, Development, Education, Evangelism and Mission) as the center's focus for future strategy and development.

In 1978, an agricultural extension program was implemented.  In 1979, the first of many Baptist Outside Of School Training (BOOST) programs was initiated in Kinuskusan.  It was a program launched to help the young people of the Philippines become responsible and model citizens in the rural areas.  1979 also saw the launching of the first issue of The Baptist Farmer, a quarterly publication dealing with farming problems in the southern Philippines.

In response to and working with local farmers, Mr. Watson, Dr. Laquihon and Mr. Rodrigo Calixtro helped develop a technology for farming the uplands known as the Sloping Agricultural Land Technology (SALT) in 1978.  Due to the huge national and regional interest in SALT, a formal training program was launched in1 980 to help in the spread of the technology in the uplands.  Subsequently, other SALT versions were developed (SALT 1, SALT2, SALT 3, and SALT 4) and by the mid-1980s, over 1,000 people per year, local and international, were coming to the MBRLC for training.

Today, the MBRLC has developed into a 19-ha demonstration farm with seven satellite projects throughout Mindanao.  It now has a staff of over 120 people with a good deal of those being involved in local village development programs.  Over 20,000 visitors come to the MBRLC per year with about 2,000 of those being one-week trainees per year.  Moreover, through linkages with international organizations such as the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation (ARLDF), the MBRLC now has ties to projects in over 12 Asian countries, primarily promoting sustainable development for the uplands utilizing agriculture, health care, literacy, and community organizing, among others.