The Provincial Small and Medium Enterprise Development Council in Negros Oriental is urging farmers in the province to start planting bamboos, not only for business opportunities, but to lessen disaster risks.
This was after Herbie Teodoro, senior project director of the Philippine Bamboo Foundation Inc. Visayas Region, said in a recent meeting with the SMEDC, that some 400,000 bamboo propagules are now being produced in a Dauin nursery, and in the garden centers in Bayawan City and Vallehermoso town, in Negros Oriental.
The province has bamboo varieties that are available and abundant and these plants grow fast and can be harvested in three years, Teodoro said.
PBFI has three bamboo nurseries in the province because of the growing demands for bamboo nationwide and in the global market, Teodoro said, adding that export potentials for bamboo-based products in global markets remains strong.
He assured the SMEDC of PBFI’s financial and technical support if organized farmers' groups decide to invest in the commercial farm production of bamboos.
Teodoro added that bamboo is used extensively for soil and water conservation technologies suitable in disaster situations and the protection against soil erosion and landslides.*
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