Malapapaya trees are now “in” as the demand for its products such as bento boxes, coffee stirrers, veneer inlays, and furniture components among others continue to rise.

In Pagsanjan alone, an ice cream spoon and stick company needs about 25,000 malapapaya trees with at least 24 cm diameter at breast height per year to supply its domestic market. Unfortunately, good quality malapapaya timber is in short supply.

Substitute materials such as plastics may not be as environment-friendly and sustainable as wood. The production of plastics spoons and sticks consume more energy than producing similar items from wood.

On the contrary, tree planting has better effects on the environment as it sequesters carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and thus supports the Philippine Clean Air Act and the Kyoto Protocol.

There is a large market for ice cream spoons and sticks. In fact, the demand of a multinational ice cream maker in the Philippines is only about one-tenth of the company’s global requirement.

Meanwhile, local furniture exporters are now including malapapaya products in their design. Thus, the prospects for malapapaya timber are truly bright.

In 2000, the Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources developed a protocol for producing improved quality malapapaya seedlings. However, this scientific propagation method is not widely used.

Only a few malapapaya processors, tree farmers, and seedling producers recognize the benefits of scientific production methods. They seem to prefer producing great quantities of malapapaya tree without regard for the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of timber production.

To address this concern, PCARRD through its Techno Gabay Program in collaboration with the Southern Tagalog Agriculture Resources Research and Development Consortium and the Southern Luzon Polytechnic College established an S&T-based farm on malapapaya.

The 2-year project will showcase the scientific propagation of malapapaya from elite trees’ seeds. The farm will promote the technology and the use of improved quality malapapaya planting stocks in the provinces of Laguna and Batangas.

The malapapaya model farm envisions a 1,000 m2 malapapaya nursery in the 12-hectare malapapaya farm of a Magsasaka Siyentista (farmer scientist) in Brgy. Bigo, Pagbilao, Quezon.

The S&T-based farm hopes to promote the scientific methods of propagating malapapaya seeds, and to have at least 30 farmers, seedling producers and/or investors adopt and continue using the method even after the project. (Ma. Rowena M. Baltazar and Anthony C.T.M. Foronda, S&T Media Service)