INVEST IN BAMBOO PRODUCTION, PHILIPPINE FARMERS ARE TOLD

2008-09-05 08:59:11 - DAVAO.
China running out of bamboo, RP farmers eye 8-B dollar market

China is running out of bamboo within five years, opening a huge opportunity for Filipino farmers nationwide to tap the 8 billion US dollars global market for bamboo products.

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Edgardo Manda, general manager of Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) told regional planners, stakeholders and traders in Davao recently that the Philippines can be the world's second biggest bamboo exporter next to China which is the global top exporter of bamboo products.

"Let's take advantage of this opportunity. Soon China will run out of bamboos in five years and will turn to us for help," Manda said.

Manda has been going around the country since 2004, enticing hundreds of farmers and big growers to start big plantations of bamboo, noting that the country's bamboo industry has hardly made a dent in the Philippine economy.

Despite the big dollar potentials for the stagnant industry, many farmers and private firms remained cool and unimpressed to the idea of investing so much time and money growing bamboos as a business venture, said Manda who was also a former undersecretary and presidential assistant for Southern Tagalog.

"It's really a pity. More can be done with bamboo--it's the most available and abundant resource," Manda said.

The Philippines has only about 52,000 hectares of land planted to bamboos today with hardly any replanting, according to the Philippine Bamboo Foundation (PBF).

During the last four years, the PBF have been rallying many towns and provinces nationwide thru Rotary Club meetings in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, to put up commercial bamboo forests or big bamboo plantations.

Full government support for financing and technical help was assured by Manda, if and when organized farmers' groups and agro-industrial firms decide to invest in the commercial farm production of bamboos.

Trade Undersecretary Merly Cruz said the export potentials for bamboo-based products like handicrafts, furniture and furnishings in global markets remained strong as ever in developed countries like the US and Europe whose up scale markets are more inclined to go for the exotic, Oriental-type products.

'That's why we need to have a strong bamboo industry to meet the growing demand for bamboos to be used for handicrafts and furniture designed for the export markets," Cruz said.

Philippine bamboo handicrafts averaged about 368 million dollars while bamboo furniture turns in about 2 million dollars in annual export earnings.