Why Invest in Bamboo?

Every year, precious tropical hard woods and forests are being cut down, slashed and burned. Restoring those natural forests would take several generations, therefore we need to find faster solutions that can substitute conventional wood application and continue to convert CO2 into oxygen. The answer is Bamboo!
Bamboo belongs to the family of grasses and is one of the fastest growing plants on earth. It is NOT a tree, but quite simply grass… In just 1 growing season, stems reach their full height. It takes another 3 years, however, for the bamboos to harden and reach maturity.
Every hectare with bamboo produces 30,000 liters of water/year and has an “underground network” root system, some 20 Km (12 miles) long. This same network enriches and protects the soil from erosion, giving life and nutrients to the top layer.
Cotabato Catch Basin needs Bamboo
With the high absorption rate of bamboo as it needs plenty of water on its clocked growth of 1.20 meters overnight, it would substantially reduce the water flow of the major rivers contributing the logging of waters at Ligwasan Marsh. Bamboo is then best recommended to plant along Pulangi River and Rio Grande de Mindanao and along other rivers bucketing to the catch basin. Intermittent flooding would be significantly reduced.
Bamboo also captures CO2 and converts it into oxygen, substantially more than regular trees. Recent studies indicate that the potential for atmospheric carbon dioxide fixation in the first six years of Guadua Bamboo (monopodium specie of bamboo genera, like moso bamboo of Japan) growth from new sowings is 54 metric tons per hectare. Hardwood and softwood trees at fully matured stage could only absorb CO2 at 8 metric tons per hectare. Trees are poor competition for carbon sink and carbon sequestration compared to bamboo.
Bamboo has been classified as having over 1500 different uses, including fences, furniture, laminates, music instruments, food products and every part of a building. Asian cultures have a saying that a man is born in a bamboo cradle and goes away in a bamboo coffin. Everything in between is possible with bamboo.

Captive Market
Based on the memorandum issued by DENR pursuant to EO 879, all schools in public elementary and high school should use bamboo desks by 2011. An amount of Php 11,692,505.00 was allocated for the Cotabato Province for the purchase of bamboo desks and tables and other furniture. Kidapawan City DedEd Division alone has a total budget of Php 1,019,604.00 for bamboo furniture. And the total amount allocated for the province is only twenty five percent (25%) of the total purchases for the SY 2010-2011. With the cost of an armchair at 900.00 each, if the whole budget for DepEd Kidapawan City Division alone would purchase armchairs, it would need 1,133 armchairs, now, an engineered bamboo armchair needs four (4) bamboo poles at choice cuts, then it needs 4,532 poles for materials and needs 5.6 hectares (200 clumps per ha/ 4 poles per clump) of bamboo forest, and that would save also 5.6 hectares of timber and rainforest.



2. What kind of bamboo should we grow in Cotabato Province?
For every bamboo plantation, we will use the most commercially used bamboo specie like Apos, kawayan Tinik, botong, Bayog, Kiling, ornamental bamboos like Buddha’s Belly, Iron Bamboo, Chinese Bamboo and among others.
Flowering occurs only ONCE in a lifetime for bamboos. After that, they slowly fade away and die. Growing bamboo from seeds, will give bamboo a life span of 100 years, and guarantee us a healthy, strong and vigorous bamboo plantation.

3. Where are we growing bamboo?
Because of the quantity of rain and the type of soil, almost anywhere in Mindanao, bamboo is suitable. But due to topographical location, the catch basin was situated in the low lying towns and barangays of North Cotabato. So, we have chosen these places where we will start planting bamboo. Flooding is the perennial problem of the areas near Ligwasan Marsh. Silts and giant water lilies are generally blamed for the rising of water in Cotabato City and the areas traversed by Rio Grande de Mindanao.
As far as the elders of Barangay Maluao, a barrio of Pigcawayan Municipality, narrates the situation in the past, the Maluao river is full of rock boulders and pristine water, large fishes like giant carp, haluan (snakehead), katipa (catfish) puyo, kagang (rivercrabs) and gurami, sigwil is also plenty along with paitan, inggat-inggatan, pahi (freshwater prawn), kasili (eel), box turtles, magkal (phyton), wild boars, deers, alamid (wild cats), iguanas, giant monitor lizards, kagwang (tarsier), flying squirrels and plenty of pako-pako (fern) and gabi, edible parts of the gabi are the talbos (udag variety), takway (runners) and tubers. Birds of various species like tulihaw, kalaw, miyaw-miyaw(owl), kusi (parrots).
To say the least, the Maluao River is teeming with life, the perfect symbiosis of Flora and Fauna, nowadays, the turbulent mud water during torrential rainfalls or even dried up Maluao River during dry spell is all you can see, carabaos wallowing in the water and flies resting on their head along with the stubborn paitan is all you can see if you try nature tripping in the Maluao River. It is almost the same story to the other areas of North Cotabato. Timberlands are gone, monocropping was introduced, unsustainable farming practice, poisoning of rivers and the long list of man made damages against nature.
We would like to bring back to its near previous situation, the flourishing situation of North Cotabato by introducing the fast growing bamboo plant, the cash grass and miracle plant. We choose these places because of the presence of natural grown bamboo and the availability of high quality parcels.
4. Bamboo Investment Plan
Each hectare would generate an income of Php300, 000.00 per annum (after 5 years - Abra Region Reference)
Bamboo can be grown at a minimal cost. The estimated investment cost for commercial plantation for one hectare amounts to Php 59,770.00 with a working capital of Php 32,500.00. The Net Income before tax is calculated to reach Php 58,407.67. Without considering the land cost, this undertaking is expected to have a Return on Investment of 316%. The Gross Profit and Net Profit Rate are 98% and 63% respectively.(DTI – Industry Briefs) Approximately, after one (1) year, the investment will be recovered. Thus, the project is worthwhile to embark on.

This includes:
• Land with a Certified Title registered in your name or your company’s name. This land is located on one of our designated locations, best suited to grow bamboo.
• 100 (10 x 10) 210 (7 x7) bamboo seedlings, skillfully planted. If we plant bamboo in 2011, we can harvest the first ones in 2016 and from there on, every year, without re-planting! In 2016, we can harvest 20,000 Linear Meters of solid 6” building material from each and every hectare we planted in 2011. That generates a passive income every year from 2016 on until 2110 … (almost hundred years of continuous income, which could support until the fourth generation of your brood…)
• Full time maintenance (fertilizing, cleaning, pruning) and consultancy. Bamboo in maximum high yielding status, just make sure all seedlings are carefully planted, fertilized, irrigated, and weeds are eliminated. Existing groves are pruned, and cleared from over-mature culms to ensure a healthy bamboo plantation.
Just watch your money grow, every day!
These profits are calculated by the amount of bamboo "trees" that can be harvested per year per hectare

A Sensible Way
We think that the world financial crisis is a good moment to make a stop and start thinking seriously about the future of our planet and the people living on it. If we don’t change radically and start to respect nature, we will go the wrong way and further destroy our beautiful earth.

If - on the contrary - we start to look more closely at what mother earth offers us as a strong, sustainable platform for a steady, ecological growth, we will do “the right thing“. Bamboo is our best friend out there. It is native, available and of the highest quality we can possibly dream of.

We Believe…
We strongly believe in the ecological and economical strengths of growing bamboo as a substitute for wood, as a natural building material and a producer of oxygen and water.
When planting bamboo in an orderly way, we can harvest it in a never-ending cycle of beautiful, straight, strong, earthquake-resistant poles.
We do know that we can build sustainable and affordable houses, bridges, schools and hotels and make a fair amount of money as well. Remember that your little bamboo forest produces enough bamboo to build almost 30 low cost housing every year!
By teaching and promoting the possibilities with bamboo in a certain region, local communities will copy our activities, which should result into a large bamboo community center or cooperation. Obviously we cannot do this alone, therefore we ask passionate investors to join our efforts and also teach and share their knowledge in their particular field of interest.
Our ultimate goal is to set up a cooperation that includes all kinds of private sectors, investors and Local Government Units who are passionately and would be involved with bamboo in all its application.