Tags: Agribusiness, Livelihood Programs
By Anna Valmero
CATANAUAN, QUEZON—The humble arrowroot tuber, locally known as “uraro”, shows promise as a potential substitute to more expensive wheat flour.
This would help reduce the country’s annual flour imports amounting to over $200 million, according to the Department of Agriculture (DA).
According to the US Wheat Associates, the Philippines imported 2.28 million metric tons of wheat in 2010 to be used for food and farm feeds.
In the town of Catanauan in Quezon, local farming communities doubled the yield of uraro tubers from the previous four metric tons to eight metric tons per hectare in a pilot program conducted by the DA’s Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR).
The use of organic fertilizer was a major intervention done by DA to help increase arrowroot production, said Rosemarie Bautista-Olfato, DA Southern Tagalog Integrated Agricultural Research Center (STIARC) assistant manager for technical programs.
Uraro farmers in Catanauan produce starch sold under the brand name “Catanauan’s All Natural Arrowroot Starch”.
The uraro farming area in Quezon province measures around 200 hectares. Produce is distributed to nearby provinces liken Bulacan, Laguna and Marinduque.
“Uraro thrives anywhere in the country for as long as there’s enough moisture. With our program to raise farmers’ ‘sense of ownership’ in the project, we’re able to help them realize that agriculture can be a lucrative business,” added Olfato.
While uraro flour is largely used to make native cookies, Olfato said that with a product development program, the range of products can be expanded to include baby food and starch-based food for adolescents with digestion problems.
The STIARC, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), pledged to give Catanauan farmers additional equipment such as an extractor and hammer mill to increase production of uraro flour.
Technology interventions include land preparation when farmers begin plowing and harrowing their soil, use of planting sstock for each season, and cutting of top leaves and excess roots before planting.
Farmers were also taught planting of three suckers per hill with a distance of 30 centimeter by 50 centimeter compared to the disorderly ”bugsok-tanim” done previously. They were also told to do weeding two-three times a year for optimal growth of the plants.
Practices of outstanding farmer scientists such as Alodia Rey were introduced to the farmers under the Farmers Information and Technology Services (FITS) program.
With the interventions, yield increased by three-fold from 4.04 metric tons per hectare in 2010 to 12.7 metric tons in 2011. Growth was also impressive from 9.59 metric tons per hectare in 2010 to 20.8 metric tons.
Related stories:
Uraro is a favorite delicacy from this Laguna town
Healthy pandesal made from corn flour sells in Laguna
Ilocos entrepreneur promotes sorghum as alternative cash crop and biofuel
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