Agriculture Business Week

For many people, garlic is just a condiment used to spice food. But for a group of women in Vintar Ilocos Norte, this aroIrratic bulb is their way of life.

It’s the Siwawer Garlic Products Association, a group of 35 women, mostly housewives, who make garlic-based products during their free time to earn additional income for their families and to socialize at the same time. It’s one of the associations under the Rural Improvement Club (RIC) of the local government of Vintar.

They are using the Ilocos garlic. Like other local garlic varieties, this so-called “white gold” of Ilocos Norte is an indispensable ingredient in every Filipino dish, a good source of calcium, phosphorus and potassium, and known to have therapeutic and healing properties. Hence, this versatile commodity, which thrives in Vintar as well as in other areas in the north, is considered as the most profitable dry season crop in Region I, making it the major producer accounting for 65 to 69 percent of the national output annually.

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Posted on August 11th, 2008 under Vegetables. Tags: Garlic. Comments: None

Sea urchins are marine invertebrates locally known as “pana-pana” (Tagalog) or “kuden-kuden” (Ilocano) that thrive in the seagrass beds of our coastal waters. These are highly prized particularly to the Japanese who consider their gonads or “uni” a delicacy.

The breeding in captivity and cage culture of the sea urchin (Tripnuestes gratilla), was pioneered in the country by researchers of the University of the Philippines’ Marine Science Institute led by Dr. Marie Antonette Juinio-Menez in the `90s. Starting in Bolinao, Pangasinan, the culture of the sea urchin has spread to nearby La Union.

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Posted on August 11th, 2008 under Aquaculture. Tags: Sea Urchin. Comments: None

The depletion of the chico river watershed in Cordillera is worsening. An inter-agency committee tasked to conserve the watershed has already come up with programs on sustainable river and forest conservation and reforestation. But the thing is, these projects cost over P5 billion.

Over 115 billion? Well, this hefty amount just indicates the extent of the damage incurred on the Chico River. It’s the price of neglecting this 404,685-hectare watershed basin that straddles in Kalinga, Mt. Province, Ifugao, Abra, and Apayao.

According to the Inter-Agency Committee-Chico (IAC-Chico), a policy and decision making body created by Cordillera Regional Development Council (CAR-RDC) to prepare the Chico River Watershed Development and Management Plan, the most pressing problems on the watershed are decreasing water discharge, diminishing biodiversity, river siltation, and water pollution.

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Posted on August 11th, 2008 under Special Report. Tags: River, Watershed. Comments: None