Lowly camote to save the day | %author% – Business Mirror

Camote (sweet potato) chips, anyone? How about camote cue, or the simple boiled camote?

Did you know there is more tothe lowly sweet potato than your favorite merienda (snack) food?

Among other high-value crops,camote, and other root and tuber crops are now being considered for developmentby the Department of Agriculture (DA) to prop up food production, and boost thecountrys food security and resilience to climate-change effects like strongtyphoons, flash floods, landslides or even long-season of drought.

In his keynote message deliveredby Undersecretary Cheryl Marie Natividad-Caballero during the opening of thetwo-day Regional Congress: Root and Tuber Crops for Food Security and ClimateChange Resilience in Asia held at a hotel in Quezon City recently,Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar highlighted the importance of the root andtuber crops in boosting the countrys food security and climate-changeresilience.

The event served as avenue for root and tuber crops industry stakeholders to share industrydevelopments and approaches, and discuss strategies and initiatives to furtherprop up production capacities, and expand markets, in Asia.

It was organized by thePhilippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research andDevelopment of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCAARRD), and theInternational Potato Center (CIP) with funding support from InternationalFund for Agriculture Development (IFAD).

Dar said the DA is currentlyfaced with four major challengesthe African swine fever, fall army worm,and the falling prices of palay and copra.

These are the reasons why Darsaid since he assumed the top post as the countrys food czar, the DA hit theground running on how the agency is expected to deliver services for the Filipinopeople.

He added: Innovation,technology and entrepreneurship is key to competitiveness. It means expertizeon pest and disease management, postharvest, plant physiology and horticulture.

Dar said the conference came atan auspicious time, as the current DA leadership is pursuing a systematic andlong-term strategy in attracting private investments, developing markets andpromoting exports of raw and processed agricultural products, under what hecalls our New Thinking for Agriculture.

At the core of this NewThinking is Inclusive Market-Oriented Development [IMOD] as a strategy tomodernize the countrys agriculture sector, boost its resiliency againstclimatic stresses, create employment and income opportunities, and uplift theliving conditions of millions of smallholder farmers, he said.

He said as DA chief, the goalis to have a food secure Philippines with prosperous farmers and fisherfolk.

With regards to the countrysroot and tuber crops industry, he said, we recognize the huge contribution ofthe industry in our agricultural economy.

According to Dar, thecountrys production of top 2 tuberscassava and sweet potatototaled 3.25million metric tons (MMT) valued at P2.7 billion at current prices.

Cassava and sweet potatoesare grown in 312,000 hectares nationwide, he said.

He said the globalization ofmarkets created a slew of tremendous challenges and opportunities forPhilippine agriculture, in general, and the root and tuber crops industry, inparticular.

The challenge comes from theneed to ensure the quality of our products at competitive prices and producethem in economies of scale. But heightened competition also offers us theopportunity to strengthen the national agricultural support system to prosperin the context of our international trade agreements, he said.

He cited as an example theAsean economic integration and its accompanying free-trade agreement whichstarted in 2015, and gave rise to a large consumer base of 635 million peopleand combined trade amounting to nearly $3 trillion.

For the longest time, we havebeen lagging behind our Asean peers in terms of land productivity, cropdiversification and exports, he said.

Of the Big 5 ofAseanThailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippinesthe latter isthe only country with a negative trade balance because it imports more food andagri-based products than it exports.

DA, he said, recognizes its dutyto provide our small farmers, fishers and small-scale entrepreneurs thefighting chance in the global arena.

Through the Bureau of PlantIndustry and the High-Value Crops Development Program, which coordinate allefforts for this subsector, the DA is working to ensure the availability ofhigh-quality seeds and planting materials to support the agencys expansionprogram for priority root and tuber crops, especially in indigenous peoples(IPs) communities.

Dar said the DA will alsoestablish post-harvest facilities and encourage value addition, bring Filipinoroot and tuber crops farmers and entrepreneurs timely market information, andfacilitate all the linkages they require to make the industry profitable,productive and globally competitive.

We will continuously improvenational regulatory services, including our certification systems, and ourpest-risk analysis and food-safety services; and develop and promote betterproduction technologies throughout the archipelago, including the conduct ofFarmers Field School and Package of Technology (POT) and Training of Trainors(TOT) sessions, he explained.

Root and tuber crops, or RTCs, have been gaining recognition asnutrient-rich food crops, versatile raw materials for micro and smallenterprises, and agri-industry, such as food, feeds, starch, bioethanol, andinstrumental to enhance resilience to climate change, DOST-PCAARRD and CIPsaid.

RTCs grow in a wide range ofenvironments, require lower input than grains and have exhibited evidence ofaddressing vulnerability and risks related to increasingly recurrent extremeweather events, particularly in Asia and Pacific region.

The experts believe thecultivation of RTCs amid challengesincluding the low productivity ofsmallholder farmers, pests, diseases, limited utilization and consumption, slowadoption of improved production and processing technologies, and lack ofcompliance to industry standards offerfarmers in Asia and the Pacific anopportunity to not just put food on the table, such as during emergencysituations like natural calamities, but a better economic opportunity throughexports.

They said that one just haveto plant the right variety, and a unique and interesting value addition thatwill sell the by-product.

Diego Naziri, of the CIP, or ResearchCenter of Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research(CGIAR), said the two-day event aims to raise awareness on a wide range ofstakeholders, including researchers, government agencies, policy-makers,nongovernment organizations and private sectors, about the importance of rootand tuber crops for the livelihood of the people, and as a resilient crop toface the challenge of climate change.

One of the main outputs weexpect from this Congress is to have stronger collaboration and reciprocalknowledge about what we do on roots and tuber crops in terms of researchinitiatives, and establish collaborative undertakings in research andinnovations in root and tuber crops and put the result of the research in thehands of the farmers and the private sector, said Naziri, also a projectcoordinator at FoodSTART.

Of the 100 participants inthe event, most are from Asia, including a huge delegation from thePhilippines, and representatives from India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Tonga, Myanmarand Korea. There are also key representatives from Kenya, Colombia andthe United Kingdom.

According to Naziri, root and tubercrops, particularly sweet potato, are very resilient.

He said during the aftermathof Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan), where farms weredestroyed, root and tuber crops, particularly sweet potato, survived thedevastation.

We have very good exampleswhere root and tuber crops became instrumental in recovery from shocks, hesaid, citing the case of Yolanda wherein the sweet potato was among thefew survivors among food crops.

All around the world, root andtuber crops remain the last crop standing after the devastating effect ofclimate change-induced weather events, he said.

This is important becausefarmers have access to food in times of food shortage. Another bigadvantage of this crop is they are short cycled, he added.

Sweet potato takes only 90 to100 days to reach maturity, he explained.

During the post-Yolandarehabilitation in the affected areas, he said sweet potato planting materialswere distributed to help farmers quickly recover.

Another so-called disastercrop, he said, is the cassava, known locally as kamoteng kahoyor balinghoy.

Even when cassava isdestroyed, the fact that the root crop remains underground makes it safe.

It is highly perishable afterharvest, lasting only two to three days after harvest, he said. However,despite its stem and leaves being destroyed, as long as the roots and the cropis in the ground, they can be kept there for a month and still be good forhuman consumption, he explained.

Root and tuber crops help feed theworld, says Naziri.

In terms of production, theroots and tuber crops produce more than 500 million tons of food globally andthey are the key staples for about 300 million people around the world, hesaid.

Over around 1 billionconsumers benefited from the works of CGIAR and CIP to improve the productivityof root and tuber crops, he said.

CGIAR and CIP conductsresearch in partnership with national-partners, primarily to develop newvarieties of root and tuber crops.

CGIAR and CIP have the largestgene bank of potatoes and sweet potatoes in the world and distribute thesevarieties to farmers around the world.

CIP has offices in 40countries, including Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Jerry Jing Pacturan, country program officer forAsia and the Pacific Region of IFAD, said root and tuber crops, particularlycamote, is the crop of many indigenous communities.

They are the crops of manypoor communities, such as in the upland areas of IPs in Southeast Asia.

Besides being very resilientthat they survive during typhoons, they are good sources of food and nutritionthan most food.

On top of these, root cropsare cheap, with camote costing around P50 to P90 per kilogram only, dependingon the variety or quality.

While it is a favorite snackfor many Filipinos, however, camote is not considered a staple food, unlikerice, or white corn in some parts of Visayas and Mindanao.

According to Pacturan, some specialvarieties of potato and sweet potato, are now being exported. Ube,a variety of sweet potato grown in the Philippines, he said, is in-demand forflavoring, such as in ice cream.

The root and tuber crops, hesaid, remains cheap but this is just a question of quality.

In fact, some root and tubercrops have the potential for export. Vietnam is exporting potato, hesaid.

The Philippines, according toPacturan, has the potential in carving its own niche in the global food marketgiven the opportunity in producing good variety of root and tuber crops, orthrough value-adding, producing by-products from these special root and tubercrops.

It is also a matter offinancing, he said.

IFAD is helping farmers inBenguet through the DA, in producing quality root crops.

In the project, dubbedCordillera Highland Agricultural Resource Management Program 2, funded by IFAD,the DA committed to provide the government counterpart of around P70 million.The project has been running for over 15 years now.

Another IFAD-funded project isthe Fisheries, Coastal Resources and Livelihood Project, which involvescoastal resource management and enterprise development.

Whether you are thinking of a merienda,or some food in times of disasters, the lowly camote might just save theday.

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