Bamboos, abundant in PH, raise challenges

IF YOU are in the air with your commercial flight descending in three minutes to the waiting tarmac, you can have a good view —without clouds below—of the country’s landscape: hectares of green bamboo stands.

On the ground as now, particularly when the monsoon rains have begun to sweep the Philippine archipelago, many farmers from up north in Ilocos Norte and Cagayan down to the hinterlands of Mindanao share a smile.

As abundant as the rains tumble down from June, soon after summer, bamboo shoots start to be plentiful, traditionally used as vegetable food among them and as well in other Southeast Asian countries.

A cultural quipster says that with bamboos in abundance Filipinos can truly celebrate life. Officials from the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development say the demand at present in the world market for bamboo shoots is “increasing because of their nutritional and health benefits.”

The bamboo shoots—“rabong” in the north of the country and “labong” elsewhere and described as the King of Forest Vegetables in Japan—have been a traditional forest vegetable in most parts of this archipelago of 114 million.

In China, the bamboo shoots have been considered a forest vegetable too for the past more than 2,500 years—delicious and rich in nutrients and rank among the five most popular healthcare foods in the world.