MORINGAFACT.COM

In Manilla, the increasing demand for Moringa has been met with new scientific advancements in the agri-science industry. The Filipino agency, PhilStar.com recently published a story discussing the vast improvements of agricultural production. Below is an excerpt from the PhilStar. ”

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is pinning its hope on a farmer-scientist’s malunggay seedlings propagation tech-nique to address the increasing demand for malunggay planting materials in the country, an agriculture official said.

Alicia Ilaga, outgoing director of the DA Biotechnology Program Office, is endorsing farmer-scientist Terso Rasco’s technique to farmers engaged in the massive propa-gation of seedlings of malunggay, scien-tifically known as Moringa oleifera.

Rasco developed a rooting method using bioculture technique to propagate malung-gay seedlings, improving the conventional stem cutting technique used by most farmers in propagating malunggay.

Using his technique, farmers could easily double, if not triple, and at a much shorter time the production of planting materials which is usually done also by harvesting the mature malunggay fruits and separating the seeds from the pods from a mature malunggay tree, Ilaga said.

Malunggay used to be a mere backyard tree, although Filipinos are already fond of eating malunggay leaves, and its fruit pods, as ingredients to some favorite Filipino dishes, like ‘tinolang manok’, ginisang munggo, and ginataang isda. The pods are cooked together with fish in the Ilocos Region.

Since the DA-BPO embarked on a mas-sive information, education and commu-nication about the nutritional value of malunggay, its economic importance was also highlighted.

The moringa seeds are now being eyed for the production of all-purpose oil, while the leaves are not only sold in the market, but are processed as well.

A number of farmers have since started planting malunggay, but the big demand for both the seeds and leaves of malunggay, requires more planting materials. The production of planting materials has become a stumbling block, as there are not enough nurseries to produce the number of seedlings needed to meet the demand, even of a single local investor who has challenged the DA to produce the seeds, as well as leaves, to meet the big market demand abroad.”

The above story was extracted from http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=539414&publicationSubCategoryId=77