The Importance of Petroleum Nut to the Philippines and to Filipinos

Dear Friends at Bibaknets,

In 2005, I decided to leave my journalism Reinhard Mohn Fellowship at Germany to work on a native tree which I believed would one day provide rural folks a sustainable alternative energy. I refer to the petroleum nut (Pitosporum resineferum) which grows in the Cordillera region but sadly now are very few because their natural habitat continue to be destroyed. I have read an article in the Canopy publication of the Forest Research Institute dated 1982 that it was impossible to grow the tree from seeds that is why FORI (now ERDS of DENR used cuttings and planted these in Loakan). Being an agriculturist, I wanted to find out. I harvested a few seeds at Kayapa, Nueva Vizcaya. I plantied the seeds in various media but also failed. After four months, I was only able to grow 23 which I planted in my house in Longlong and farm in Tublay. These are now 5 years old and ready to bear fruit.

After a year, I discovered why it was difficult to plant the seeds. Correcting earlier untried research efforts, I was able to raise more than 10,000 seedlings. I meticulously recorded all my research activities and after two years I was ready to distribute thousands of seedlings to farmers.

Why did I bother about the tree? Because of three reasons. First, it will provide rural-dwelling Filipinos an alternative and ustainable source of fuel to replace expensive and vanishing fossil fuel. Secondly, when people plant the tree to harvest its fruits for oil, there will be less cutting of trees for fuelwood or firewood because rural families will now use oil from the petroleum nut for cooking and lighting. Third, the more people will plant petroleum nut to get more oil for socio-economic needs, the more trees there will be to serve as carbon sink and help prevent global warming.

When I made my discoveries, I went to several government agencies but they were not interested. So I continued my work alone. Today, I am happy to tell you that I and my small team have successfully been able to:

1) Test and prove that the petroleum nut oil can replace LPG and kerosene for cooking
2) It can replace kerosene for lighting.
3) It can run small one stroke engine and even a small water pump.

Fueld by our discovereries, we wrote several international organizations. Many responded and bared how they would help us, indicating the large economic potential of the tree. A Singaporean, a Japnese and five European organizations continue to pursue us in a joint venture.

However, we have chosen one institution because of one reason. We have chosen to forge a working relationship with the University of Tennessee because they are the only group which assured us that they will help us protect the patent rights of the tree from going into the control of biopirates, something we wanted to be assured of from all those who made an offer. In my presentation to the Benguet Provincial Board who asked me to orient them on the tree, I mentioned that it was not only important to conserve and propagate the tree but to protect it from exploiters. The university will help us on this item aside from doing the laboratory work on the potential of the tree to replace diesel and gasoline as fuel.

Before we arrived at our research results, I approached some government institutions for help but they gave me the cold shoulder. In fact, one institution-- an agricultural university--, to my consternation, is trying to duplicate our efforts.

On February 23, I will divulge to a group of top agribusiness companies (the Management Assn. of the Philippines), in Makatai the efforts done on the tree. This group wants to support a national conservation and production program for the petroleum nut. On March 7, I and representatives from University of Tennessee will hold a press conference and explain what we intend to do with our joint efforts and the results.

We will keep you updated and I trust our efforts will redown into helping our brothers and sisters in rural areas in the Cordillera region, and in other parts of the country, especially our farmers and of course in protecting our ecosystms and our indigenous resource properties and rights.

Michael A. Bengwayan

Petroleum Nut To be Tested on Different Engines

My group PINE TREE, the Cordillera Ecological Education, Training, Research and Information Center which is doing research on petroleum nut as an alternative sustainable fuel will be testing the petroleum nut oil on different diesel engines by May this year. This has become final as PINE TREE forged a formal working agreement with the University of The University of Tennessee
Department of Plant Sciences and the Dr. Neal Stewart Lab. The purpose is to 1) establish the extent and potential of the tree's oil as fuel and 2) to protect the tree from biopirates.

Michael

Home Garden, How to Do It by Dr. Mike in the Philippines

Home Garden, How to Do It by Dr. Mike in the Philippines

Traditional home gardens in northern Philippines range from 20 to 100 square meters. Planted normally are a mixture of sweet potato, yam, corn, beans, and a tree or two of avocado, pomelo, and guava.

Sounds good but not so good. It is important to have a plan in developing a home garden. These tips can help you:

A. In the garden,
1. Consider where the sun rises from because you should not plant crops that will shade other crops. Do storey planting where shorter plants are fully exposed to sunlight before the taller ones. (eg. pechay, eggplants, corn). Thus, crop orientation is important.

2. Look at your soil. Does it need more fertilizer?. Reddish to brownish soils indicate lack of NPK nutrients. if you don't know how to get soil sample, the most appropriate thing to do is increase your NPK levels. What will you use? Use organic fertilizer for basal application. If you intend to plant green leafy vegetables, use compost made out from nitrogen fixing plants and trees (eg. centrosima, caliandra, alnus). If you will plant fruit-bearing veggies or tuber-producing crops, increase potassium and phosphorus basal fertilizer.

It is also important to know if your soil needs to be watered regularly or not. How will you know? Get a handful of soil from your tilled garden, close your fist on it until you make a lump, raise your hand and drop it on the ground. If it does not break freely, your soil is too soggy, you don't need to water every other day. But if the soil breaks freely into many parts, then your soil is too dry, water every other day.

Now examine your soil. Do you have earthworms, century bugs and tiny critters/ if yes, you have a good soil. If you don't see anything moving or crawling, you do a damn "dead soil", that's not too good.

3. Protecting your plant is of utmost important. But remember, if you have the right to produce, you have the responsibility to produce safe and nutritious crops. Always consider the need to make the environment safe and clean and the rights of consumers. Never try to poison both. Ordinarily, the main pests of vegetables are slugs, snails and caterpillars (of many different insects), are the worst enemies.

To rid of slugs and snail especially in your seedbeds, put a cup of beer in a can and place it at the edge or rim of your seedbed. These attracts the pests and fall into the can. In the morning, dispose the pests. For caterpillars, put 15 to 20 cigarette butts in a liter of water and let them stay there for a week. The nicotene and tar of the cigarette butt mixes with the water eventually. Use this to spray against caterpillars.

Okay guys, more next time so drop by.

Michael the Gardener

Crisphead Losses to Romaine or Cos Lettuce

The unfortunate typhoon events that caused massive flooding and landslides in Benguet and Cordillera region Philippines forced PINE TREE to adjust its project on organic vegetables. of the fifteen young men that were to be trained eleven backed out because they had to go and help their families.

Because PINE TREE was helping victims and evacuees, it involved instead 12 young mothers in its training program. With the advent of Christmas and the need to raise immediate cash to help the family victims, the trainees planted two kinds of lettuce--crisphead and romaine.

The harvest on the crisphead variety suffered marketing problems because smuggled Chinese crisphead found its way to the local market. the romaine lettuce sold well however.

Growing organic Romaine Lettuce

A Reprint from PINE TREE's Newsletter
Growing organic Romaine Lettuce
By Emmanuel Arañas, PINE TREE Staff and Trainee

Organic vegetables can be grown in a small area or containers such as garden boxes and pots. Last October, we at PINE TREE sowed romaine lettuce seeds in pots. The seeds were from our seed bank. We used soil that was fertilized by vermicast, or the so-called worm poop. These are the castings of the African night crawlers. They are rich in nutrients that improve soil fertility which in turn help the lettuces’ growth.

Moreover, the lettuce pots were placed where repellant and nitrogen-fixing plants are to protect them from pests and diseases. We harvested some of these organic lettuces in the first week of December. This proves that nutritious and healthy vegetables can be produced in your own home.

When I was an agriculture student in college, they taught us organic gardening but the vegetables were being sprayed with pesticides so I knew the produce were not really organic. And I have learned from our director, Dr Michael Bengwayan that organic farming in most areas in La Trinidad cannot be practiced because of the chemical farming methods that have been done over the years. He said that the soil has become acidic and the pest that the farmers repelled from their farms will infest the organic gardens that are in close proximity.

PINE TREE have been growing and promoting organic vegetables since it started. And I only learned how to grow them when I became a PINE TREE staff. I got to learn zero chemical treatment and the minimal use fertilizers in gardening. I am very lucky to be with Dr Bengwayan’s staff because I am learning a lot. And this is one of the things why I am proud to be with PINE TREE.

Cordillera Indigenous Peoples Have Long Used Organic Farming

Organic farming is a new name for an old practice among many indigenous peoples in the Cordillera region, Philippines. For many years, indigenous peoples called Igorots, maintained ricefields fertilized with composted pig manure called "lumeng". This is mixed with rice straw and during planting, the manure is spread in the ricefields together with wild sunflower. (Tithanium divesifolium). The Igorots also have been using the nitrogen-fixing algae, an aquatic fern to help fertilize their rice with nitrogen before scientists claimed they discovered it.

In the homes of Igorots are home gardens which are a mixture of vegetables,medicinal plants and spices.

It is sad however that these indigenous sustainable practices are being lost to cash crop industry. PINE TREE is one of the few NGOs in the region still promoting homegardens and organic gardening.

Michael A. Bengwayan, Ph.D
Director
PINE TREE

Hunger Awaits Filipino Families

Where Two Typhoons Struck - Philippines

Hunger Awaits Filipino Families

By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

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Manila, Philippines (October 5, 2009) – The Philippines will face nationwide hunger starting the end of this year and will worsen by the first quarter of 2010 because of the destruction wrought by typhoons Ketsana (Ondoy) and Parma (Pepeng), the United Nations warned.

Paolo Mattei, UN World Food Program (WFP) regional officer for Asia said the country should prepare for possible widespread shortage of food after inspection was carried out. Two powerful typhoons in four regions of the country ripped through the Philippines destroying thousands of hectares of rice and corn.

Right after the warning, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered that rice will be imported to meet the impending food shortage even though rice importation in the past has often resulted in corruption like kickbacks and smuggling.



Billions Worth of Food Destroyed

Mr. Mattei traveled with agriculture secretary Arthur Yap who said almost 150 million dollars worth of rice and corn were destroyed in the Cagayan and Ilocos regions alone.

The Cagayan region, made up of the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya and Batanes, is the country’s largest corn and rice grower. The expected harvest for this quarter, Yap said, is all but gone.

An estimated 400,000 metric tons of rice and 300,000 metric tons of corn have just been lost, Yap said.

In the province of Isabela, the nation’s largest corn grower, all of the corn planted was wiped out by Typhoon Parma, he added.

Agriculture infrastructure worth more than 30 million dollars were destroyed as well, and the government is hard pressed to come out with funds to mitigate the impact of such losses, Yap said.

Besides the Cagayan and Ilocos Regions, typhoon Parma wrecked havoc in the Cordillera, Central, Southern Tagalog and Bicol regions, displacing 170,000 families more besides the 2 two million families already made homeless earlier by Typhoon Ketsana.



Diseases on the Rise

The agony and personal loss of the thousands of Filipino families made victims by the storms are being made more painful by the fact that not only are many hungry, without enough clothes and belongings, but also sick and without enough medicine.

Red Cross Chief Richard Gordon said thousands are sick of colds, diarrhea, influenza, injuries caused by the evacuation, and fungal diseases caused by long exposure to the dirty water when people escaped the floods.

“There is medicine, but it is not enough, we need more and we are pleading to the international community to come to our aid”, he said.

Already, Canada, the US, European Union, Australia, Japan have poured millions of dollars to assist the impoverished country run by leaders perceived by many citizens as corrupt.

Majority of those sick are women, elderly and children and their immunity system is gradually deteriorating, he added.

The spread of diseases has been rapid, he noted, because thousands are crammed in limited spaces of evacuation centers, and there is widespread problem of water and sanitation.

“Toilets are limited, as well as water for washing and bathing”, 56 years old Inciang Denas said, who took a bath only once while many have not taken one yet.

“There are no separate toilet for women and toiletries like tissue paper, hand disinfectant and soap are nowhere to be found”, cried, Nancy Hista,

In many places, the stench of dead animals still lingers as well as the thousands of tons of waste and garbage that remains uncollected.


Hundreds of Flooded Villages Still Unreached

As the government struggles to cope with the gigantic task of evacuating, feeding, treating and rehabilitating towns that have been flooded, hundreds of villages in 26 provinces are still submerged, and thousands of isolated people have yet to receive relief and supplies.

According to Red Cross disaster expert Rene Sarmiento, many of these villages have not been reached basically because of lack of appropriate transportation like motorized rubber boats.

“Rubber boats cannot travel against flood waters with strong undercurrents, we need pump boats or rubber boats with motors”, he said.

Many of the rescue efforts done by boats were done by people with private yachts and personal speedboats.

Many villages also have become incommunicable because power and communication lines were cut, Sarmiento said.

“We lost contact with many local leaders and residents”, he said.



Blame Game

The disaster that struck the Philippines has made many people angry, especially the victims who lament how the government has been caught unprepared by the calamities.

The government, despite all its excuses, will be remembered for its corrupt and wasteful spending while no preparation has seriously ever been done to deal with a disaster of this magnitude.

However, it is the people, especially the rich and the government planners, who should share the blame. The country’s forests have been cut to almost just 20 per cent now from its original 75 million hectares of forests by the few elite rich families, many of whom are politicians. This has contributed to global warming.

Urban planners, likewise, have not looked into the probable environmental impacts of their plans that have been used to construct roads, housing, drainages, canals and sewer lines.

Garbage generated, especially by the many poor, find their way to rivers and canals and the government does not have an effective solid waste management programme

However, If at all, the two typhoons have taught the Filipinos a thing or two about caring for the environment. This time, hopefully, the Filipinos will learn after their bitter lesson.


Michael A. Bengwayan is a Journalist and environmental specialist based on Manila. He can be contacted through youth_campaign@iolteam.com.