By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Because of them, Nambukayan is the main supplier of ginger to the Tabuk market. Their harvest has also penetrated the markets of Tuguegarao City in Cagayan and Roxas town in Isabela.
Nambukayan is one of the barangays in the city which of late has attracted negative attention due to the rapid deterioration of its environment brought about by the activities of kaingineros, illegal loggers and fishers and male folk who hunt down practically anything that moves.
The residents now severely feel the effects of their folly and ignorance as most of the springs from which they used to fetch their water all year round have disappeared and during summer, they use vehicles to haul water even as far as barangay Bulanao, eight kilometers away.
Irony of ironies, residents of Nambukayan along with those in neighboring barangays Guilayon and Magnao have to make do with softwood when they construct their houses nowadays when the entire area was once known for its thick forests that abounded with narra and other hard wood species.
Amante Batalao, an in-law of the Gunabans, said that the current 10 hectares of ginger plantations in Nambukayan all of which are partially shaded by trees used to be coffee plantations. He said that ginger could be grown under any tree except for the gmelina due to the water-absorbing capacity of the specie.
He said that they do not grow ginger in the open because when exposed to the sun, the rhizomes rot easily while under the trees the rhizomes could be preserved for months.
As for the possibility of expanding into tree-less areas, Batalao said that this could be done with the fast-growing giant ipil-ipil trees as temporary shades.
“You could plant the ginger and the ipil-ipil at the same time and by the time ginger are grown, they could be shaded by the ipil-ipil. Along with the ipil-ipil, plant acacia trees. You can cut down the ipil-ipil when the acacia are big enough to shade the ginger. That could take around seven years,” Batalao said.
Batalao admits though that the ginger grown under ipil-ipil is noticeably less robust than the ones grown under acacia trees because of the thin foliage of ipil-ipil. He said that the difference reflects on the harvest as ginger grown under good shade could produce as much as one kilo of rhizome while under ipil-ipil could only manage half of that at the maximum.
He said that at the moment, most Nambukayan farmers still prefer to plant the environmentally-destructive corn over ginger but he believes that if the market is assured, they will switch to ginger.
Not only has corn hastened the near disappearance of the remaining trees of the once thickly forested barangay, the product also comes with the usage of weedicides which annihilate all plants except the corn.
Gabino Gunaban who has one and a half hectare ginger plantation grown under mahogany trees he himself planted, says that the only enemy of ginger are the petty thieves who harvest the crop while the farmers are away. He claims though that the losses coming from the thieves is not really that much.
“One way of encouraging Nambukayan farmers to grow ginger is to prioritize the construction of farm-to-market roads so that there would be no difficulty in bringing out the product. If this is not done, it would be difficult to interest other farmers to switch to ginger. We already have the seeds,” Samuel Gunaban said.
With respect to Nansibakan which is located some seven kilometers from the national road, it is passable except when it rains several days on end when some portions which are yet to be concreted or properly graveled become too muddy to traverse.
The problem is about to end though because the concreting of road up to the center of barangay Guilayon has been allocated some P120M from the Philippine Rural Development Program, a World Bank-funded project, which in the case of the province is aimed at boosting coffee production.
He informed that some people from neighboring barangays Nambukayan and Magnao and likewise barangay Naneng farther to the south had purchased ginger seeds from him but he has not heard the farmers selling their products in the market.
Samuel Gunaban welcomes more farmers entering ginger production in the city because although it will mean stiffer competition, it will also help in the maintenance of peace and order as it would lessen theft.
“If the petty thieves have their own plantations to attend to and they make money out of it, there would be no need to steal,” Samuel Gunaban said.**(To be continued)
