NGOs nursing nurseries

In my previous commentary, I reported that Director Clarito Barron (09178738483) of DA’s Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) cited the mayors as the key to nursery development. However, because of an incident involving a nongovernment organization early last week, he now says that NGOs can also fulfill that important role.

The Kapampangan Development Foundation (KDF) is an NGO that was originally conceived by Manila-based Kapampangans who wanted to give back to the region they grew up in. Its founding chair was the late Trade Secretary Rizalino Navarro. Its current chair is PLDT Chair Manuel V. Pangilinan, while its president is former Rotary District Governor Benigno Ricafort (09176310233). The KDF recently decided that it would help the Kapampangan Region (Region III) become a fruit center for Luzon.

This is a strategy that has implications for the entire nation. The Philippines has the potential of being the fruit center of Southeast Asia. Today, we are far behind Thailand and Vietnam because we have not commercialized successfully our fruit potential. This despite the United Nations finding that the Philippines is one of the 10 richest countries in terms of diversity of flora (plants) and fauna (animals).

Every year, the National Seed Industry Council approves new outstanding fruit varieties with very desirable “horticultural characteristics.” Unfortunately, this potential is not realized because of inadequate commercialization and implementation. This bottleneck can be solved through systematic nursery development.

Strategy

Our economy has grown significantly, but without inclusive growth.  Fruit tree development can contribute significantly to this kind of growth. Instead of our outstanding fruit varieties lying stagnant and even deteriorating because of poor commercialization and implementation, NGOs can take an active role in developing their potential. The need for massive tree-planting in our countryside can provide much needed livelihood income. This will also help our environment, as well as improve our health by providing abundant and nutritious fruits.

However, we must overcome a huge obstacle: the lack of accredited nurseries. According to Barron, we have only 220 nurseries, of which 40 percent are not accredited. Though BPI has more than enough resources to support nursery development, there are few requests from the local government units for this support.

Hence, the 2013 and 2014 BPI plans forecast a measly 10 percent increase in accredited nurseries. Barron was therefore very happy to hear about the KDF plan for a system of multiple nursery development in the Kapampangan Region.

KDF will work with other NGOs like the Rotary, the Lions, and the Suroptimists to look for both small and medium entrepreneurs to put up these nurseries. There would then be a systematic plan for having this network of nurseries coordinated to meet the different needs of their target clients, as well as get BPI assistance using economies of scale.

It is clear that people cannot be motivated to grow fruit trees when there are no nurseries to provide accredited fruit seedlings. However, with BPI accreditation, new nurseries will provide certified seedlings yielding the expected quality output.

In addition, BPI will transfer the technology of raising the seedlings in a way that will give the best results. For example, if the buyer of a grafted seedling is not taught to trim the growth below the grafted point, the output that will be realized only after a few years may yield the same bad fruit characteristics of the original seedlings.

Conclusion

Though the LGUs, no longer the DA, are primarily responsible for agricultural development, many of them do not have a municipal agricultural development plan. Consequently, there will be no nursery development program. In those areas, the NGOs should take the initiative of nursery development, as the KDF has done. They can later partner with the LGUs for maximum benefit to the community.

It is a welcome development that BPI will now give the same support to NGOs as it does to LGUs for nursery development.  National NGOs like the Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, and Suroptimists can decide to launch fruit nursery development as a strategic program in all their chapters as their contribution to inclusive growth. This will help livelihood, the environment, and health. Then we will see not only mayors nursing nurseries, but NGOs as well.

(The author is chairman of Agriwatch, former secretary for Presidential Flagship Programs and Projects, and former undersecretary for Agriculture, Trade and Industry. For inquiries and suggestions, e-mail [email protected] or telefax (02) 8522112.)