Town bats to become sweet tamarind capital of the Philippines
MAGALANG — The picturesque and agricultural town of Magalang is not giving up on its dream of becoming the sweet tamarind capital of the Philippines through a program that aims to also contribute to the fight against climate change through farm tourism.
There is now a renewed effort to propagate the locally developed Aglibut tamarind variety here through the effort of the local government and its people. Magalang Mayor Malu Paras-Lacson said that the aim is to create the supply chain for the source of sweet tamarind supply for commercial use and consumption.
“Even now that we only have a couple of trees in Ayala area here, there are people who have been coming here to buy sweet tamarind to resell or process for other products,” Lacson said, adding that more tamarind trees would be beneficial for the town and set up the ground works for the eventual local processing of the product by locals.
“Right now there is no product processing but we hope to come to that. Right now the objective is to have more trees to meet the supply. The more trees we plant the more we help the industry and the environment,” Paras-Lacson said.
agriculture engineer’s dream of developing a sweet tamarind variety has opened exciting possibilities for the fruit tree and renewed interest in commercial tree farming.
The late Prof. Andres Aglibut succeeded in developing a clonal seedling of sweet tamarind, later named the Aglibut sweet tamarind, in honor of his memory. The aglibut fruits are slightly curved with an average weight of 21.04 grams, moderately sweet, moderately juicy, dark brown flesh, and high edible portion. It has a spreading growth habit and can produce an average 45 kg a year at the height of its fruit bearing stage.
The Pampanga Agricultural College or PAC (now Pampanga State Agricultural University) in Magalang played a key role in the development as it was here where the late professor had developed the variety.
Aglibut was consultant at the PAC when his nephew, Dr. Fortunato Aglibut Battad, was the president.
A few years back, there was much excitement for the propagation of the seed variety but much of it died out due to relative government support, lack of serious monitoring, and lack of long term development plan.
Some six years ago, the Bureau of Agricultural Research has alloted 1.5-M pesos for the sweet tamarind’s commercialization in Pampanga and other provinces like Ilocos Norte. Likewise, the Commission on Higher Education also gave PAC 1.5-M pesos to hasten the variety’s commercialization in Pampanga.
Trees have been planted in Magalang some five years ago, but these were placed along road ways and plant boxes that hindered the full development of the trees. Trees planted along the road had eventually been cleared away by road expansions.
But the lady mayor would not see the aglibut program die under her watch. A few years back when she was still a municipal councilor, she has taken interest on the seed variety and now as mayor, she has jolted the program back to life again. The municipality had launched its “Tamarindization” program for Magalang that hopes to propagate as many as 35,000 to 40, 000 trees.
The municipality had an ordinance in place to require would-be couples to plant one or two tamarind trees before they are given their marriage license. This is hoped to further boost the tamarind propagation program.
Also, renewal of permits for public utility vehicles here would require them to plant tamarind trees in backyards or designated areas. The ordinance mandates strict monitoring to ensure the survival of the trees.
The lady mayor said that tamarind is also a good tree to plant in a large scale to help mitigate the effects of climate change. Tamarind can also grow well in any type of soil and agro-climatic conditions making it a very resilient tree to grow anywhere.
Paras-Lacson said that PAC has been given the go-signal by the National Seed Industry Council (NSIC) to commercialize the variety and the lady mayor said that they have started coordination with PAC for technical support on how to maximise the commercial potentials of the fruits from the sweet tamarind variety.
“There have been many studies on the sweet tamarind and its uses and we hope to use that knowledge on a commercial level to help tamarind farmers,” Paras-Lacson said.
Paras-Lacson hopes to create an industry for the sweet tamarind with the end objective of creating sweet tamarind processing industries in the town as part of the objective of positioning the town as a farm tourism center.
Aglibut is comparable to the Bangkok (Thailand) variety, which is internationally known for its sweetness and this town hopes to bench mark on the successful fruit processing industries as it tries to set up its own fruit processing industry soon.
The town of Magalang is nestled at the foot of Mt. Arayat. Seventy percent of the local economy is dependent on farming.
Paras-Lacson said that instead of attracting heavy industries that would ruin the ecological balance of the town, she is capitalizing on the already emerging industries on farm tourism here.
Aside from aglibut positioned as the town’s main produce under the One Town One Product (OTOP), Magalang is now being recognized as a tourist destination because of its popular restaurants, wellness and recreation centers, and the appeal of these industries is anchored with Magalang’s agricultural surroundings. Its emerging wellness industries boasts of their settings along the natural appeal of the environment around Mt. Arayat and local restaurants serve home cooked meals from the town’s local produce.
“Magalang is an agricultural town and we plan to use that to our advantage and merge eco and farm tourism in our overall program,” Paras-Lacson said.
Development of the town’s farm tourism, she said, would also contribute in maintaining the environment of the town and help in the overall effort to combat the effects of climate change.