Cirendeu Village to Become Alternative Food Area

The Deputy to the Minister of Agriculture, Bayu Krisnamurthi, plans to make Cirendeu Village, in Leuwigajah subdistrict, Cimahi, West Java, an area of alternative food.

According to Bayu, even though this is only an isolated village, the area has never suffered from food shortages.

“This is quite amazing because the villagers never eat rice their whole lives. They live with cassava as their main staple,” said Bayu, Monday (5/4).

As a consequence, he continued, they were never impacted by national rice prices, which are very fluctuating because of Indonesia’s people dependency on it.

Not to mention if a disaster occurred in the region, like a drought or flood, which caused harvest failure.

“This has never become our concern,” a Cirendeu figure, Asep Abbas, told Tempo.

According to him, the amount of national rice stocks eould not affect the community’s food security.

The village where around 300 households live won a food hero village award in 1967.

“Back then there was the revolution and the government was vigorously eradicating the Indonesian Communist Party rebellion. At that time, rice was very rare. There are people who ate because they were starving. We supplied cassava rive to surrounding areas, which we have produced, so that areas around our village were not starving,” he said.
Even though Asep did not appeal to people to switch from rice to cassava, he said that compared to rice, cassava had a greater benefit.

“People around here are healthy, strong and smart, and they can compete in sports. A great number of our children go to study outside of the region and they are successful even though they eat cassava,” he explained.

When health is concerned, Bayu agreed that cassava is good for diabetics, because it has lower sugar level than rice.

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Cassava, banana production gets boost in Leyte

ORMOC CITY—Various stakeholders gathered at the Philippine Rootcrops Research and Training Center here for the signing of memorandum and marketing agreements to implement a component of the Agrarian Reform Communities Project Phase 2 (ARCP2) of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).

Leading the signing were private investors Early 7 Marketing (E7M) and SC Coco Global Products Inc. (SCCGPI). Both entered into marketing agreements with cooperatives that will serve as financial conduits on organic cassava and banana production.

E7M entered into an agreement with Sto. Niño Visares Multipurpose Co-op (Savimco) of Capoocan town, while SCCGPI forged an agreement with Omaganhan Farmers Multipurpose Co-op Inc. (OFMCI) of Tabango town and Zaragosa Agrarian Reform Co-op (Zarc) of Matalom town.

Under the agreements, E7M will purchase from Savimco fresh cassava tubers at a floor price of P2 per kilo delivered to the buying station, or P1.75 per kilo if picked up at the assembly area. It will also buy processed (chopped and dried) cassava at P6 per kilo. E7M will also assist Savimco in sourcing a good variety of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides on a “plant now, pay later” plan.

E7M is an agricultural product consolidator, processing and trading company based in Ormoc and contracted by San Miguel Corp. (SMC) to supply dried cassava chips. It supplies the cassava needs of the BMEG feed mill, operated by SMC in Tacloban 100 kilometers away.

SCCGPI has agreed to buy from Zarc and OFMCI fresh (not too mature nor too young) bananas (cardava, aldaba and enaldaba varieties). The company, which produces and exports banana chips, buys only organic raw materials in compliance with European Union organic regulations and the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Organic Program.

DAR information officer John Colasito said they chose Savimco, Zarc and OFMCI for being millionaire co-ops with farmer-beneficiaries identified by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program as members. ARCP2, which covers 16 towns in Leyte, has three components: rural infrastructure, agricultural enterprise development and community development.

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Cassava production a promising venture for Pinoy farmers

Due to its huge potential market, cassava production is a promising agribusiness venture for Filipino farmers.

In an interview over Tingog sa Kaumahan a radio program of the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Unit 13 aired over DXMK Magik FM Butuan, Dr. Candido Damo, Cassava Project Leader under GMA Corn Program who recently visited Caraga Region during the Good Agriculture Practices (GAP) training revealed that cassava production in the country haven't meet yet the demand of the market thus opportunity still awaits to the farmers.

He said that based on five year projected demand established during the recently held National Cassava Stakeholders Meeting, the demand for the current year 2010 pegged at 5 million metric tons and expected to increase to 10 metric tons by 2014.

"Sa ngayon base sa production natin noong 2009, nagsusuplay lang tayo mga 46% of the demand, so malaki pa talaga yung market potential in terms of local consumption natin (As of 2009 production, we are only supplying about 46% of the current demand, so there's still huge market potential)," he said.

Due to the gap between cassava production and the demand, some of the processors import supplies from other countries such as Thailand to fill in their requirements.

However, Dr. Damo expressed optimism that pinoy farmers could meet the demand of the industry due to positive status of cassava production in the country that continually surge in terms of volume production brought by increased area planted and yield per unit area.

"Sa ngayon meron na tayong 2.04 thousand MT na production sa cassava at tumaas din yung yield level from 8 to 9.7 MT per hectare now", he revealed.

Aside for human consumption, about 80% of cassava production goes to feed formulation by feed millers as ingredients for animals and aqua feeds.

To boost production in the country, the Department of Agriculture through the GMA Corn Program wherein cassava is a sub-project, give focus on the commodity through the three major interventions.

Firstly, according to Dr. Damo is mass propagation of new varieties with high yield potential. "We already started mass propagation of planting materials on these varieties in 16 regional field units of DA wherein this could be sources of the farmer organizations as starting planting materials in their respective areas.

Secondly, "we provides post harvest equipments such as cassava chipper or cassava granulator to cut short processing time and thirdly we are busy conducting trainings on our regional staff, local government units extension workers and farmer leaders and also we are reproducing leaflets or techno-guides to transfer to them new technologies", Dr. Damo narrated.

He is also hopeful that the five year plan will be approved to give more focus on cassava industry in the country incorporating the research and development (R&D) component.

"Kasi alam natin marami pa tayong kailangang pag-aralan para lalong mapaganda ang cassava production sa Pilipinas (Because we all know that there are numerous factors that needs to be studied to further boost up cassava production in the Philippines", he said.

For farmers whether individual or organized cassava growers who would like to take part of the project, Dr. Damo urged them to visit their nearest DA Regional Offices and look for the regional corn coordinators or the regional cassava focal person to shed light on them on the particular interventions that they could get out of the program.

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Small Cave in village

It’s been long time I never visit my friend café he has a small nice café in Trawas, small village surrounding by high mountain and fresh air that we can breath, many of his customer that enjoy their lunch are in all aged, although it is not so crowded, the situation very nice, Their original recipe will bring more guest especially in holiday and week end I am just wondering how come the small cafe can attract many customer, when I look restaurant equipment then I realize why this café is success.

Do not forget that professional cookware is the answer of this question it can be an image to the customer, who want to have their limited time can enjoy a nice food and a good atmosphere with a good ambience also, then the customer will enjoy their lunch, dinner even breakfast with small menu.

Also restaurant supply is key success for all the restaurant business combination of all the above will directly bring you more profit and will bring more guests to visit this café. I really believe that all the above matter is something that all the restaurant businessman need to considering.

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