Experience of Filipino Agriculture vol. 2

Hi, everyone.

Thank you for reading.

Today’s article is “Cocoon production center in Philippine”.

Filipino Cocoon Production

Not mentioned on the previous post , I’ve been to Negros Island in the Philippines.

Close to 90% of silk in Negros is produced by the center I visited.

The place is called “OISCA Bago training center” built by the Japanese Public Interest Incorporated Association OISCA.

On our visit, we spent time talking with the farmers.
 

The binginning of silk farming

They had earnings only from growing sugar canes.

At that time, they had no idea that farming on a mountain is possible,so they used their mountains to produce charcoal instead. Which is a big waste.

Now, they are using their mountains to produce silk as well as growing sugar cane.

However, local farmers feared it when the OISCA staff promoted it to them at the beginning.

For gaining trust, OISCA had started orientations and made deals with more than 200 farmers in 2016.

The center provided farmers silkworms and mulberry, a berry eaten by the worms.

They gave lectures about how to grow the berry.

They had a lot of species of mulberry such as Filipino, Brazilian and Thai.
 

What is Sericulture

This is a picture of me staring at the box in which the silkworms were.

The staff said that, if people raise it outdoors, it’s easy to die.

Thats why they put it in box.

Each of the worms make approximately 1200 to 1400 meters of cocoon, which is unwound by a machine.

I was surprised that the center used such big machinery because I had no idea of how sericulture worked so far.

After the silk was processed, it was sold in a shop inside the center.

I bought a tie there.

There were a lot of products such as hands cream, clothes and so on.

It was like the “6th Industrialization”.