Mountain Province town's abaca produce in peril due to weather

BONTOC, Mountain Province – The remote town of Natonin has a hard time transporting its abaca produce because of bad roads caused by recent heavy rains. Benjamin Gayodan of the Department of Trade and Industry here said there are still nine tons of abaca fibers left to be transported from Natonin. The Natonin-Bontoc Road is 60 kilometers long and takes about eight to ten hours to navigate because of the bad condition of the road. Worse is the 24-kilometer Natonin-Paracelis Road, which is almost impassable at this time, said Gayodan. Natonin residents usually bring their abaca to Paracelis prior to delivering it to the market because it is warmer there and the fibers need to be dried to prevent molds. Gayodan said that 5.5 tons of abaca were recently transported to Bontoc, but the rest of the produce are still in Natonin and may be molding, which affects their quality. Mountain Province is the only abaca-producing province in Northern Luzon. Abaca is produced only in Natonin and parts of Paracelis and Barlig in this part of the country. Abaca plants grow in about 900 hectares in these areas, but Gayodan said they needed weeding to make them bigger and healthier. The Department of Trade and Industry plans to invest in stripping machines and mechanical dryers. Gayodan said trained abaca strippers cannot produce much as they are doing it manually and the abaca stalks can hardly be dried as most of the fibers are only air-dried and the weather lately had been uncooperative. Abaca fiber is the one town, one product (OTOP) of Natonin. Gayodan said the provincial government should prioritize the improvement of the roads leading to Natonin. He said Natonin farmers had to shell out P18,000 to transport their prouducts from Paracelis to Manila. On the first half of last year, Natonin was able to sell about 25 metric tons of abaca at P33.50 per kilo to Manila Cordage Corporation and Jingbee Corporation. The major abaca producing areas in the Philippines include Bicol, Eastern Visayas and Mindanao. The Philippines provides 85 percent of the world's supply of abaca fiber while the remaining 15 percent comes from Ecuador. - GMANews.TV