Stakeholders and key players are continuously developing the bamboo industry with the establishment of the giant bamboo nursery inZamboanga City in a bid to meet the rising demand of bamboo seedlings in the area.
Confederation of Western Mindanao Philippine Exporters Association Inc. (PHILEXPORT WesMin Phils.) headed by its President, engineer Jaydrick Johnson Yap, and Zamboanga Bamboo Development Council Inc. (ZBDCI) President George Madrazo will formally sign next month amemorandum of agreement (MOA) on the operations of the proposed giant bamboo nursery.
The nursery and purchase of giant bamboo seedlings project aims to provide local farmers with the readily available seedlings in the area, and a sufficient supply of bamboo raw materials for various industries and end products.
PHILEXPORT WesMin Phils. will provide the construction of the nursery structure and an initial 2,500 giant bamboo seedlings.
“We will start (the construction) by the last week of May 2022, it will take at least two weeks. (This will be) funded through our PHILEXPORT regional/sectoral support fund of 2021,” PHILEXPORT WesMin Phils. Executive Director Ross Alfred Estrada said. “It (nursery) will be our showroom for interested buyers/farmers”.
The ZBDCI, on the other hand, will manage the bamboo nursery located at MelRoseVille Subdivision in Divisoria for establishing seedlings nursery that will provide the seedlings to its member-farmers, people’s organization, and local government unit (LGU) in Zamboanga Peninsula. It is responsible for the nursery’s daily operation and expenditures.
The ZBDCI and PHILEXPORT WesMin Phils. have agreed for a 50-50 percent deal on the total net income of the nursery.
Estrada said they target to cater the entire Zamboanga Peninsula and different chapters of PHILEXPORT.
“This will be a prototype giant bamboo nursery and it can be duplicated to other chapters. Bamboo is a diverse product for the environment and a sustainable material for the replacement of timbers for construction used as engineered bamboo, furniture, processed bamboo shoot, etc. It’s a huge export product industry in the future,” he said.
Estrada said they will start locally by giving livelihood to the community.
“We have local post –harvest facilities in Bukidnon who already supplied and exported the engineered bamboo planks to Vietnam and the United States,” he said.
Meanwhile, Estrada said the MOA will be forged also with different government agencies, including Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) Business Council Zamboanga.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will provide additional bamboo seedlings for Region 9, the Department of Agriculture to provide the fertilizers needed, and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to facilitate the needed machines for the bamboo productions/ innovation and research assistance.
The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) will provide bamboo management and production national certificate (NC) II training, while the Department of Trade and Industry and Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) for marketing and as the Secretariat.