Agriculture Business Week

Coco sugar and other organic products from Lanao del Norte sold like the proverbial hotcake at the 2009 National Livelihood Trade Fair at the SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City under the auspices of the Philippine Chamber of Handicrafts, Inc. and the Congressional Spouses Foundation, Inc.

Besides coco sugar, the other organic products from Lanao del Norte included honeymansi with pineapple, honeymansi concentrate plain, pineapple marmalade, bangus in corn oil packed in glass container, coco honey and coconut vinegar which are all manufactured without any preservatives.

A lot of people bought the coco sugar although the price is much higher than the sugar from sugarcane. The coco sugar is in the form of fructose which is superior healthwise compared to the sucrose in the ordinary sugar from sugarcane.

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Posted on October 1st, 2009 under Organic, Other Crops. Tags: Coco Sugar, Lanao del Norte, Organic, Sugar, Trade. Comments: None

The town of Lala is the only first class municipality out of 24 in the whole province of Lanao del Norte. It is also the acknowledged Crab Capital of the province. And that is the reason why a week long Alimango Festival is held starting every 22nd of March, a tradition initiated by Mayor Santiago Bontilao when he was first elected as chief executive of the town eight years ago.

Mayor Bontilao hastens to add, however, that the festival was intentionally not called Crab Festival because he was afraid it would be associated with crab mentality. Last March, two tons of crabs were cooked and fashioned into a crab mountain similar to a huge Christmas tree. Later in the day, the townsfolk and their visitors feasted on the luscious gift of nature caught from Lala River as well as from the ponds of private entrepreneurs. One other highlight of every celebration is that the public can buy two kilos of live crabs each at only P100 per kilo, which is about three times cheaper than the price obtaining in the market.

According to the mayor, there are no less than 3,000 hectares in Lala, along Panguil Bay that are devoted to fishponds where crabs, prawns and some other species are cultured. The harvests are sold mostly to outside traders who bring them to markets like Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, Manila and even to foreign countries like Japan, Singapore and elsewhere.

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Posted on August 10th, 2009 under Aquaculture. Tags: Alimango, Crabs, Lala, Lanao del Norte. Comments: 2