Bamboo Nursery Proposal

Ampersand Green Box

DRAFT COPY



AN APPLICATION FOR GRANT SUPPORT






A PROJECT PROPOSAL FOR


BAMBOO NURSERY
In Brgy.__________





T O :



Proponent :
Email ad: kidapawanbamboo@yahoo.com


Contact Person: RIMMON A. PAREN
Bamboo Advocate
Contact Number:
E-mail Address: rimmonparen@yahoo.com







I. GENERAL INFORMATION

a. Project Title

Bamboo Nursery


b. Proponent


Kidapawan City


c. Contact Person



d. Project Scope

Locale: ________and neighboring Municipalities in Cotabato Province and adjacent region

e. Amount Requested
Amount Requested : P 90,000.00
Bamboo Inc. 10,000.00
Total Project Cost P 100,000.00


II. PROJECT DESCRIPTION

A. BACKGROUND / RATIONALE

Mindanao, the southernmost major island of the Philippine archipelago, has been devastated by all the downside effects of economic exploitation, governmental mismanagement, corruption and conflict imaginable. Add in centuries-long conflicts pitting valley against valley, community against community, religion against religion and the result is chaotic.

In Cotabato Province, especially surrounding Mt. Apo, the forests are gone. The soil pours down the hillsides collapsing the banks of rivers, washing out village and field in its headlong rush to the sea. In the rural areas, about the only export activity left is banana plantations. Land reform, although long overdue, is creating dislocations in the transition from monocropping as well as the recently prevailing land tenure relationships.

On the banana plantations, few farmers saw an economic niche to be filled by bamboo. As the huge banana bunches mature, their heavy weight needs to be supported, propped up. As long as there had been wood, props came from the forests. With the wood gone or beyond economic access, plantations turned to bamboo. Yet, buying prices are controlled by the banana industry; planting of additional bamboo culms was not encouraging.

The wild bamboo groves were quickly threatened. The demand for strong, tough culms was phenomenal--millions every year. By the early 80s, industrialists could see that there would not be enough bamboo to meet plantation demand. Bamboo was needed in almost phenomenal quantities.

In 1987, propagators of bamboo consolidated themselves in Davao Del Norte, the MACO Cooperative Chapter, saw the critical step needed to open the way to large scale bamboo propagation. With that breakthrough, propagation quickly resulted in hundreds of thousands of propagules annually. The effort was increased and the community organization work to match and by 1989, the Davao Bamboo Development Cooperative [DBDC] was on its way. Jose Caasi and Rey Millan are now earning millions every month by their simple bamboo grass cultivation.

The advocacy champion Rimmon Paren was invited by DTI Region XI to attend a consultative meeting at DTI National Economic Research and Business Assistance Center at Davao City last July 21, 2008 about the bamboo industry and its future here in Mindanao.GM Edgardo Manda of Laguna Lake Development Authority alongside with the Rotary Club of the Philippines is initiating the campaign and is extending funds for those who will eagerly start the project.

DTI RODG Undersecretary Engr. Merly Cruz is very enthusiastic in how and when it will be commenced that makes the schedule on October 22-24, 2008 in Manila to hold a National Bamboo Forum that will aim to set a single unified direction for the Bamboo Industry. The core group was created in strategically planning the bamboo industry advocacy campaign. Last August 14, 2008 was the second round of meeting where issues and concerns were discussed plus hearing the reports of the members of the core group. It was concluded with the statement of the DTI Regional Caretaker Ms. Marizon Loreto to have a pacing on the discussion and should come up with the establishment of the Nursery in Region XI and in the Cotabato Province as well as the construction of an economic sized processing plant to materialize the modernization of bamboo concept productions like plyboo and bamboo flooring tiles.


DTI Provincial Director Teolulo Pasawa will see to it that the issues and concerns will come to the attention of the concerned forum. Technology Fair was then planned and yet to be scheduled the soonest time possible.
DTI Special Concerns Division Mr. Romy Castanaga, which acts doubly as bamboo coordinator is willing to be around to put it at hand the industry clustering and value adding program of the bamboo industry.

We have this model which we want to replicate here in Cotabato Province. We do have burning desire and in fact we already had planted bamboo culms for personal use. Now, the Bamboo Inc. has the mission to expand bamboo propagation and utilization as a rural community revitalization tool.

Bamboo will be planted on unutilized land areas, most especially adjacent to the flood prone areas, First and foremost, to address global warming and environmental protection, secondly, for sustainable livelihood and develop it for innovative products like plyboo, panels, flooring, roofing, MDF tiles, pencil, charcoal, incense sticks, paper, clothing, strand board, toothpick, chopsticks, matchsticks, medicines and other uses. There is a published book of 5,000 different uses of bamboo.

The Bamboo Advocates wants to develop and settle on Laak and Giant Bamboo variety, secondarily on other marketable bamboo varieties endemic in Philippines. With an annual demand from banana plantations of over 12 million props, the market opportunity justified full-out expansion of cultivated bamboo. Additional effort will come into propagation of Kayali for bamboo shoot production, and other variety for its special uses as well.

What can we learn from successful bamboo entrepreneurs are:

• First, large scale vegetative propagation of bamboo can be done without massive capital investment or technically specialized workers.

• Second, bamboo can be the focus of equally large-scale community revitalization efforts.

• Third, to succeed, any bamboo-based development scheme must be based in an appropriate and accessible end-user market.

• Fourth, to support bamboo development as an economic resource, infrastructure needs to be developed in parallel.


• Lastly, addressing the Green House Gases that cause global warming or climate change and maintain the symbiotic relationship of human and nature, simply called the principle of co-existence.

B. OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

The Bamboo Inc. needs to lease/borrow an idle piece of land total to 2,500 square meters. This area will be the nursery site, and all activities pertaining to nursery propagation and development will take place. The area must be also suitable to be a nursery of young bamboo propagules and must have plenty of water. The bamboo planting materials will be marketed to Don Bosco Foundation for Sustainable Development, Inc., Metro Kidapawan Water District, Antipas Water District and PNO-EDC, LGUs with riverbank rehabilitation projects as an additional reforestation material and individuals who has passion for the environment and do believes that what had you given back to the nature will reward you a thousand fold.
Moreover, to plant with bamboos all the unutilized land areas for re-greening of the province and eventually, the development of a Livelihood and Economic Development Projects (LED Projects).


A. Long Term

In the long run, the proponents are encouraging the spirit of sustainability, the defining of real sustainable livelihood project since bamboo has a lifespan of 120 years according to study of Dr. Felipe De Leon, thus the supply is very renewable and it creates more good than harm. Livelihood projects as well as maintaining ecological balance for the project to be enhanced and developed, the proponents will attend national and international forum on bamboo and other related activities, and to share information with the group about: manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, exporters and importers; new products; product pricing; quality; product reviews; market size of product; import and export statistics; comparison with non-bamboo products; and other vital information crucial and beneficial to the industry.

The long term objective also is to establish an effective and efficient supply chain of raw materials by providing adequate supply of planting material from the nursery. It is expected that the advocacy leadership will be encouraging among members that they will continually contribute to the existing knowledge about bamboo and provide useful information to business people, economists, and anyone involved in the research and development, marketing, trade or manufacturing of bamboo products and machineries to speed up the process.






B. Short-term

DEFORESTATION and increased CO2 emissions threaten the earth's biodiversity and the very air we breathe. Perhaps the environmental crisis' at hand was not greatly appreciated or misunderstood as the Global Warming means intense heat since we are experiencing rain showers, flooding and devastating typhoons. Recently, there were sightings of tornado at Visayan peninsula and hail storm at other parts of the region, a four hours continuous raining will submerge low-lying areas, crops and settlements were affected, we should be addressing then the food security, or the food and its security, secured and free from flooding and various environmental damages.
Recent NASA reports of a 60% loss of ozone over the arctic provide an explanation for increased severity in the world’s weather patterns; this has only begun to affect us whether directly or indirectly. The social, political and economic implications are difficult to imagine as our ozone layer continues to thin, forests disappear and desertization is occurring at an alarming rate. Moreover, to address this situation, this gigantean task begins with a spark of passion and action, we need to establish a nursery, a bamboo nursery for planting material.


C. AREA OF ACTIVITY

The Nursery will provide for the planting materials of Local Water Districts Forest Conservation Area, National Irrigation Administration, and PNOC-EDC forest protected areas surrounding Mt. Apo. Local Government Units of Kidapawan City, Magpet and Makilala. Barangays alongside the river banks, deserted areas due to depleted soil nutrients in Alamada, Alesoan, Antipas, Arakan, Banisilan, Carmen, Kabacan, Libungan, Magpet, Makilala, Matalam, Midsayap, Mlang, Pigcawayan, Pikit, Pres. Roxas, and Tulunan.

In the near future, a Bambusetum Project of the Bamboo Inc.will take place in a strategic location that would doubly served as Bamboo Species Reservation Area and a Tourist Spot. Bambusetum is a collection of various varieties of Bamboo Plants which is endemic, rare and on the extinction level.

There is 7,837(Cotabato Rice Industry 2007) hectares of potential land areas for bamboo monocropping reforestation and unutilized for other agro-industry ventures. The farmers and land owners will be encouraged to plant bamboo by conducting Green House Gases Awareness Seminars and Livelihood Development using Bamboo as the main source of raw materials. In the future, Bamboo Industry level raising and catering international market (INBAR 2008).

90 hectares (NSCB 2007) present supply of bamboo shoots can be processed for canned bamboo to supply local demands. World Health Organization is supporting such advocacy in the World Food Program since bamboo has Fiber, Calcium, Iron, Vit. C, Vit. B1, Protein, Carbohydrates, Phosphorus, Glucose, Potassium, Vit. A and 17 Amino Acids. It could be processed as canned products.

Bamboo industry will be the alternative activities of farmers in rice industry especially during the period of between planting to harvest season, as well as providing employment to out-of-school youth, Agricultural Engineers, Mechanical Engineers in fabricating bamboo processing machines, bamboo craftsmen, bamboo artists on novelty products, bamboo musicians and among others. Skills training will be handled by TESDA and Accredited Schools like USM, NCFCI, NPCAT, KTSI, RDACC and other support industries in Center for Excellence.


500 hectares of Bamboo Forest is needed to build an Economic Scale Processing Plant for bamboo panels, plyboo, bamboo ply boards as well as backyard industry stated above. This 500 hectares bamboo plantation will be the source for the rest of the organization’s income generating project on putting up in the future a Processing Plant for Income Generating Project of the province and locality. According to study, bamboo’s life span is 120 years and its biomass growth per year is 10% despite of intensive harvesting of matured poles, justifying the sustainability of this venture.

PLAN OF OPERATION

B. Organization and staffing


















Ampersand Green Box is the significant ecology –working organization in North Cotabato Province with a large base of stakeholders particularly among farmers. The organization will be overseen by a component set of board of directors and the Executive Director – Mr. Rimmon A. Paren who is an environmentalist by heart, a boy farmer, an MBA Student and a bamboo fanatic.

Proposed project partners will be sharing their expertise in management and workforce. The project will be managed independently by a Project Director who will administer the operations of the purchasing/ sourcing department (source out nursery planting material, polyvinyl bags, nursery equipments, organic based pest and fungal control), processing/ propagation department (sorting, classification, bagging, watering, pruning, fertigation), and marketing department (promoting, selling, logistics).

The staff of the Bamboo Nursery will be hired competitively from the best professional in the province to manage the operations of the plant in the most competent manner. Government agencies will be tapped to serve as advisory group in the effective management of the project such as provincial offices of the Department of Trade and industry, Department of Agriculture-CEMIARC, PCCARD-Department of Science and Technology, Bureau of Plant Industries, USM-ATI, Department of Natural Resources, National Statistical Coordinating Board, Metro Kidapawan Chamber of Commerce and Industry Foundation Inc., International Network of Bamboo and Rattan, Bamboo Cooperatives and Bamboo Societies.


C. Project Activities

The major activities of the Bamboo Nursery to achieve its objectives are:
1. Information campaign and organize water districts, farmers, learning institution for skills training, upland farmers to elevate the awareness of the usefulness of the bamboo as an ecological balancer and defines true meaning of sustainable livelihood.

2. Establish, procure/lease/borrow a nursery site and facilities that includes
A. 2,500 square meters land area to be leased
B. Purchase nursery equipments and planting materials
C. Development of tissue cultured bamboo propagules
D. Construction of a greenhouse
E. Construction of various propagation methods facilities
F. distribution (trucking, delivery)



3. Establish formal linkages to LGU’s, DENR, GOCC”s, Ecologist Group and Private Sectors,
4. Establish workable linkages with DTI, DA, DOST-PCCARD, Bamboo Societies, UP-Mindanao and University of Southern Mindanao for R & D and other government agencies, NGOs and private consulting firm to effectively manage the operations.

D. Financial Plan

The estimated total project cost is One Hundred Thousand Pesos (Php 100,000.00), the break down to viz:

Bamboo Inc. counter part:
Land (lease contracts) Php 2,000.00
Initial working capital 8,000.00
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Subtotal Php 10,000

Requested fund:

Bamboo culms (500 poles) Php 25,000.00
Gardening Equipments and fixtures 29,505.00
Admin. And Labor Costs 27,250.00
Mobilization Funds 15,000.00
Other expenses 16,300.00
Liquidity Reserves 3,945.00
subtotal 96,055.00

Total project cost Php 100,000.00

Pricing and income targets

Selling price of the Bamboo (RPM) ready for planting materials will be based on the prevailing selling price of other durable trees. The initial price should be 100.00 per propagule. A one hectare land could be planted with 500 to 600 propagules thus spending 60,000.00 per hectare. A projection of 500 hectares or more to be planted by bamboo is expected for the future source of raw materials of the organization’s plan of establishing an Economic Size Bamboo Processing Plant.

Net income will set at fifteen (15%) percent after the cost, wherein the income will be plowed back for salaries of the management, caretakers, expansion and maintenance of the facilities. The cost will be maintained on its competitive level by benchmarking on existing cost of production.



E. Project Evaluation

The project will be evaluated using a results based management tool to measure the impact (as projected in five years), outcome (in 3 years) and output (annual evaluation on the attainment of objectives and target indicators).

The evaluation tool format is as follows:

Results-Output Results-Outcome Results-Impact Gaps, Issues, & Problems
Activities
Risk Mgt.
Quality
Quantity
Tasks & Milestones
Area Coverage
Personnel
Development