Month: August 2023

August 31, 2023

By Melody Mendoza Aguiba

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is pushing for collaborations with infrastructure and public works agencies for a program that uses bamboo to fight massive flooding nationwide even as climate experts have been acknowledging bamboo’s climate-smart superiority.

   DA Undersecretary Deogracias Victor B. Savellano is standing his ground in asserting how bamboo is now globally positioned as a flood-control device.  This has been proven effective, and Philippines should similarly adopt best practices and technologies.

   “Bamboo’s number one characteristic is it is fast-growing.  Second is it fights soil erosion.  When it comes to cost-effectiveness, bamboo will be our excellent ally, second to none,” said Savellano.

   He stresses Philippines’ thrust toward bamboo propagation is an urgent imperative with the perennial floodings as President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. himself committed to abiding by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

   Even with its own effort, the Kilusang 5K (Kawayan:  Kalikasan, Kabuhayan, Kaunlaran, Kinabukasan) Foundation Inc., Savelleno’s own founded firm is participating in as much 26,000 hectares of bamboo planting in the Marikina Watershed.  It is a private-public partnership.

   Kilusang 5K piloted since 2021 with 30 hectares of bamboo planting in Karugo and Puray, Montalban.  It is a part of the Marikina watershed to whose denudation destructive flooding in  Metro Manila is blamed.

   Bamboo plays these important roles in solving flooding– water regulation, rehabilitation of degraded land, reforestation, carbon sequestration, and poverty alleviation.

   With some bamboo species growing by more than one meter per day, bamboo must be the fastest growing plant on earth. 

   Guada Bamboo in Latin America, exporter of giant tropical bamboo, reported that “one hectare of Guada Bamboo forest can store more than 30,000 liters of water in its culms during rainy season which it gradually deposits back in the soil during dry season.”

   It stores large amounts of water in its wide network of rhizomes and stems during rainy season, and returning water to the soil, rivers and streams during droughts.

   The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) reported that huge amount of carbon is stored in China’s bamboo forests.  This is projected to reach to 1.018 billion metric tons (MT) in 2050 from 727 million MT in 2010.

   In Kenya where floods and landslides displaced almost 300,000 people in 2018, smallholder farmers have planted 65,000 bamboo seedlings in the watershed.  Bamboo plants are used to cut sediments’ flow into rivers, repair riparian (river banks) areas, and stabilize lands prone to landslides.

   In Sierra Leone where flooding from torrential rains have caused poorest farm communities to suffer more from disasters, a program for a five-year bamboo planting has been raised in order to arrest illegal rural activities that cause flooding, reported Climatecolab.org.  Among its environmental destroyers are illegal timber harvesting, mining, and community use of firewood or charcoal for cooking.

   “Bamboo covers the soil through its canopy, reducing evaporation, hence rehabilitating highly degraded areas faster. Depending on the species it forms a canopy within the first four years compared to other trees that can take about 15 to 30 years,” reported DW.org, referring to statements of Peter Kung’u of the Kenya Forestry Research Institute.

   These are other “Amazing Characteristics” of bamboo as a renewable and sustainable resource: 

 1,  Bamboo produces 35% more oxygen than other stand of trees.  The 1997 Kyoto Protocol recognized that carbon sequestration is one of the most practical ways to fight climate change. Bamboo sequesters up to 15 times carbon dioxide compared to other trees.

   “A recently documented case in Allahabad, India, tells of the rebuilding of rural livelihoods where 80,000 hectares of degraded land were brought back into productivity using bamboo as a pioneer species. In 2018, INBAR released a report about the benefits of bamboo for land restoration in eight countries: China, Colombia, Ghana, India, Nepal, South Africa, Tanzania and Thailand,” IFAD reported. 

   INBAR stands for International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation

2.  Bamboo forests are a habitat for fauna and flora.  Bamboo is an important part of a biodiverse ecosystem. Many animals and human rely on bamboo for food and shelter.

3.  With its biomass for renewable energy, bamboo is a sustainable source to replace fossil fuel.  Its pellets has high calorific or heating value like coal, without polluting emissions.  Calorific heating value of bamboo pellets equals that of coal with 4,500 Kcal/kilo to 5,000 Kcal/kilo. 

Bamboo can replace hardwood for any application. 

   There are 10,000 documented uses of bamboo products from paper and pulp products, flooring, musical instruments, furniture, construction materials

4.  Bamboo Reduces Poverty and Provides Livelihoods for Local Farmers.

   “Bamboo’s rapid establishment and growth allow for frequent harvesting. This allows farmers to flexibly adapt their management and harvesting practices to new growing conditions as they emerge under climate change. Bamboo provides a year-round source of income, and can be converted into an increasingly wide variety of value-added products for sale,” reported IFAD. 

PHOTO The Carbon Cycle. Image Credit-Guada Bamboo

August 18, 2023

Melody Mendoza Aguiba

The Marcos Administration is embarking on a flagship multi-billion peso “Bamboo  Villages” program that will uplift the livelihood of the poor and Indigenous People in ancestral lands while generating foreign exchange from bamboo’s $90 billion global market (by 2030).

   Newly-appointed Department of Agriculture Undersecretary (DA) Deogracias Victor B. Savellano has spearheaded “Buong Bansa Magtanim (BBM) ng kawayan “ to create livelihood in the countryside. 

   The program will use bamboo as a climate change mitigation tool even as President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr (PBBM) himself cited  during the United Nations General Assembly that the climate challenge is a major policy goal of his administration.   

   Savellano has been leading consultations on the concept of Bamboo Villages which he has been pushing for as an inclusive, community-based approach to jobs creation and agricultural development.

   “With bamboo growing abundantly in the Philippines, we can tap a rich economic resource if we only have  a national program to develop it as an industry as what our neighbors have already invested in,” said Savellano.

   Among Asian bamboo programs that brought huge economic value are Indonesia’s 1,000 Bamboo Villages and Vietnam’s 100-hectare Bamboo Villages.

   Isidro I. Alcantara, a bank and mining executive, said Thailand just allocated $10 billion for the next 10 years to develop its bamboo industry.  Alcantara pioneered bamboo planting in a mining area in Marcventures in Surigao del Sur.

   China generates the biggest bamboo revenue at $35 billion yearly. 

   Savellano just led last week a consultation in Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon a proposed legislation allocating 5% of the budget of various government agencies for bamboo propagation.

   However, he asserted at a Senate hearing last August 9 that an institutionalized bamboo program will be needed to consolidate different government programs on bamboo that are now scattered across agencies.

   “We need to harmonize our programs that are now uncoordinated.  We need to obtain the cooperation of each individual and harness all economic resource to attract private sector investment in bamboo,” Savellano said.   

   Senator Mark Villar, who presided over the Senate hearing, said PBBM appears to find the concept of bamboo industrialization a bright light for the Philippine economy.

   “He is very excited about this,” Villar said.

   Bamboo bills filed in Congress, primarily Senate Bill 605 and House Bill 7941, have provided for a P100 million budget for the institutionalization of the Philippine Bamboo Industry Development Program.

   While P100 million yearly may be a heavy yearly budget for government, Senator Nancy Binay said the legislature should review the huge economic potential offered by bamboo as against costs.  This, as bamboo’s time has come given the global urgent call to reverse climate change.

   Former Agriculture Secretary Luis P. Lorenzo Jr., an investorat Flo rida-based Rizome Philippines which produces world-class engineered bamboo as alternative to hardwood lumber, said bamboo can be the biggest agriculture industry that the Marcos Administration can build.

  Bamboo can be the long term solution to insurgency.  Rizome’s bamboo plantations are now reintegrating rebels into mainstream economy by giving them livelihood.

   His company just entered into a Memorandum of Agreement for a bamboo project with the IP Manobos covering 2,500 hectares of ancestral domain land in North Cotabato.

   “Bamboo gives a very good return.  Our business is already a billion peso business  just with that.  It employs thousands of people. What’s good about it is we can create community-based first level processing (livelihood programs).  (People) can make slats, instead of we just buying a P70 peso pole. We can give them P400 per pole equivalent,” Lorenzo said.

     A single bamboo slat is now bought by Rizome’s Cagayan de Oro plant at P13 each.   As there is an average of 24 slats per pole, and seven poles per clump, a land producing 200 clumps per hectare can generate P436,800 gross income per year.

   “Given you have a P100,00 cost, you have a huge net income of (more than) P300,000 per hectare.  Our people just have to be taught.  They must be hardworking and should sharpen their blades everyday.”

   To support the development of the bamboo industry, Lorenzo said bureaucratic processes should be eliminated in plantation, harvesting permits. Plantation contracts of 25 years plus 25 years should be easy to obtain.

   “Honestly we’re getting invitations from Vietnam, Indonesia, India where it is much easier to do business than here.  We’re being offered lands for free.  No bureaucratic processes,” said Lorenzo.  “(Fortunately though), they don’t have good quality as our lumber because they cannot grow our  node to node distance which is very long.”

   With bamboo’s “strong like steel, tough like concrete, beautiful as hardwood,” amboo should be included as a certified material in the Building Code. 

   Bamboo has become a raw material for a wide range of products  including lumber as alternative to hardwood (beams, engineered wood, tiles), textiles, carbon composites for windmill turbine blades, large diameter water pipes and sewage mains, and bamboo pellets to replace coal in power generation.

   Alcantara, also former chairman of Philippine Nickel Industry Association, said during the Senate hearing that the mining industry can be a catalyst to bamboo’s development as an industry.  It can generate $3.5 billion in revenue per year, equivalent to the revenue from Philippines’ mining sector. This is given vast areas in mining tenements where only 25% have mineable ore. 

   The Philippines has 3.75 million hectares of idle land waiting to be developed, Alcantara said.  Yet, even if only 400,000 hectares are developed for bamboo equivalent to 10% of China’s 4.2 million hectares, Philippines can earn $3.5 billion yearly.  It can generate one million new direct jobs.   

   For wood products alone, the Philippines exported $1.81 billion in a recent year.   However, Philippines imported $1.29 billion in wood products.

   “If we substitute the imports, can you imagine the savings in foreign  exchange reserve? It’s like exporting also,” Alcantara said. “For handicraft, we have the best handcraft makers in the world.  Our craftsmen are being offered P60,000/month by other countries.  We’re even losing our craftsmen.”

   Department of Trade and Industry Regional Director  Leah P. Ocampo said during the same Senate hearing that bamboo market value will grow to $88.43 billion in 2030.  This is from $61.69 billion in 2022.

   “Asia Pacific led the largest revenue share of 78.8% in 2021.  It is expected to grow at over 4% compound annual growth rate,” Ocampo said.

   In the 2021 revenue of $59.3 billion, the furniture segment had the largest revenue share of 25.7%,  expanding yearly at 4.4%. 

   Ocampo said the bamboo shoots segment is also a growth area as edible vegetable is significantly growing due to the rising awareness  of healthy food.  Bamboo shoots contain amino acids, proteins, Vitamin A, niacin, and thiamine, among others.

   For Philippines’ bamboo product export, destinations are United States, Japan, Europe (United Kingdom, Germany, and France). 

   As of 2022, investments generated in the bamboo industry totalled P89.2 million, and domestic sales, P143 million.  The sector generated 10,898 jobs, 5,012 micro small and medium industries, and 92 community-based enterprises.

   As a climate friendly grass, bamboo sequesters 11 to 15  times the carbon dioxide compared to a tree.  It can be nurtured and ustainably harvested,  for 100 years.

   It can fight soil erosion.  Given bamboo’s plantation in 3 million hectares of denuded land in Mindanao alone, bamboo will play a significant role in Philippines’ reforestation, more popularly under National Greening Program.