SORSOGON CITY, Dec. 26 (PNA) – The Department of Agriculture (DA) has provided organized groups of pili shell craft producers here with mechanical equipment that will help them produce more high-value items.
“The agriculture department is impressed with the creativity of these people engaged in the crafting of highly salable decorative and wearable items out of pili shells, a once trash by-product of pili nuts that in the past were useful only as kindling if not dumped elsewhere to rot,” DA regional executive director for Bicol Jose Dayao said here over the weekend.
Dayao who is based in the DA-Regional Field Unit (RFU) office in Pili, Camarines Sur was in the city for the yearend conference of the Provincial Agricultural and Fisheries Council (PAFC) where the pili shell processing machines were turned over to five groups of pili shell craft manufacturers organized under the PAFC.
“We have observed the way pili shells have evolved in terms of its usage into a new industry that now provides both the domestic and international markets with valuable items like home decors and even body accessories like native necklace, earrings, headbands and bracelets that has already gained some fashion statement within ecology-conscious circles,” Dayao said.
With its entrance in the global market, pili shell now offers opportunities for agricultural communities in Bicol particularly in Sorsogon province which is the region’s leading producer of pili to make use of the shell in an industry that promises more economic returns, he said.
Started several years back by the Rural Improvement Club (RIC), a barangay-based organization of women in the city, the shell has been creatively produced as elegant fashion jewelry and as add on local material that goes with beautifully crafted home products displayed in souvenir item stores and malls in the region as well as in Metro Manila.
PAFC chairman Godofredo Ditan said the industry has opened a livelihood opportunity to rural families that produce very saleable being low-priced but artistically made hand-made products now usually worn casually or even with office uniform by women who loves donning a bit of style in their daily dressing concepts.
It has also entered the market of innovative fashion jewelries as one of the best exportable biodegradable products, Ditan said.
“This ingenuity of the village men and women in using pili shell into different fashion jewelries has now gained some global recognition based on the different demand for this product which the Department of Trade Industry (DTI) seen during recent trade fairs and as monitored from local and Manila outlets,” he added.
Dayao said the DA arrived at the intervention of providing equipments to the frontline pili shell industry players in the province to facilitate wider production of the industry that has become a home-based agri-entrepreneur engagement among pili producing barangays in the province.
“The equipment we have just provided to groups of enterprising individuals will make pili shell craft production less tedious as this will lessen the time for crafting the shells into the desired designs. It would make them abandon the usual way of doing it manually for faster and more refined craftsmanship,” Dayao said.
Indeed, Dayao said these people are further proving that pili that has emerged as another “Tree of Life” next to coconut is the flagship crop of Bicol which has opened additional opportunities for Bicolanos to liberate themselves from poverty that makes the region one of the poorest in the country.
According to Dayao, pili plays a significant role in the regional economy as it provides additional income to some nearly 20,00 farmers, farm laborers, processing factory workers and handicraft makers.
Realizing that, concerted efforts are presently being initiated by various agencies like the DA, DTI, Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and some non-government organizations (NGOs) to hasten the development of the industry in the region.
Pili has also been elevated as the 8th subnetwork under the Philippine fruit Research, Development and Extension (RDE) Agenda with much hope for this crop to become an export winner in the near future, Dayao said.
In Bicol, Sorsogon has the biggest area devoted to pili with 669 hectares followed by Albay 145 hectares, Camarines Sur 100 hectares, Camarines Norte 50 hectares and Catanduanes four hectares, he added. (PNA)
LAP/DOC/cbd