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Marijuana loses ground to silkworms in T he Philippines
Hundreds of white mulberry trees have started to cover mountain slopes deep in the northern Philippines’ Cordillera region, changing not just the landscape but also the image of a poor farming town.
Up until a few years ago, the upland villages of Kapangan, a town of 18,000 people in Benguet province, were known as one of the country’s largest cultivation areas for marijuana.
“We’ve started something to erase that tag,” said Roberto Canuto, Kapangan’s mayor.
“We’re determined to be known as something else, perhaps the silk capital of the country.”
Canuto said some farmers started growing mulberry trees, the main food of silk-producing worms from China and Japan, after sericulture was introduced in nine of Kapangan’s 15 villages in late 2004.
“We’re expanding the mulberry plantation to accommodate more farmers willing to go into silkworm operations,” he said.
Many farmers became interested in the silk industry after trials produced about 25 kilograms of raw silk that sold for $50 a kilo early this year.
“This could be the perfect alternative to marijuana . . . This could give us extra cash without taking any risks,” said Wilbur Teofilo, a leader of a farmers’ cooperative in Kapangan.
The cooperative is upgrading 11 “rearing houses” and building nine more to increase raw silk production to 250 kilos every two months this year.
Fe Donato, an official from the Fibre Industry Development Authority, said the silkworm project could produce as much as 2,000 kilos of raw silk annually once operations expand in two years time.
This could bring in an extra $100,000 for the farmers.
Most farmers will not admit to having cultivated marijuana before getting into sericulture.
But growing the illegal plant was cheap and profitable and relatively easy work.
In its 2008 International Narcotics Control Strategy report, the U.S. State Department said marijuana had regained popularity in The Philippines and the drug was being exported to Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia.
The report, citing data from the Philippines’ Dangerous Drug Board (DDB), had identified at least 60 cultivation sites in the Philippines’s northern mountain regions and on the troubled southern islands of Mindanao, Jolo, Basilan and Tawi-tawi.
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