PCARRD allots P30M for furniture R&D

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna – The governing council of a government research agency based here has approved an amount of P30 million to bankroll a research and development (R&D) program for the country’s furniture and handicraft industries.

The program will be funded by the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) with counterpart funds from its mother agency, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the DOST-Technology Application and Promotion Institute (TAPI), and Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Implementing agencies are the DENR-Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau (ERDB), DENR-Forest Management Bureau (FMB) and University of the Philippines College of Forestry and Natural Resources (UPLB-CFNR).

The program will be implemented in partnership with smallholder tree farmers; local government units (LGUs); DENR provincial and community environment and natural resources offices (PENRO/CENRO) in Regions 2 (Cagayan Valley), 3 (Southern Tagalog), 5 (Bicol), and CARAGA; furniture and handicraft associations; and Community-based Forest Management (CBFM) beneficiaries.

Dr. Patricio Faylon, PCARRD executive director, said the program addresses the dwindling supply of logs and non-timber products, policy constraints in the harvest and transport of raw materials, and poor support mechanism for farmers in producing quality timber and unreliable marketing and trading system.

Dr. Faylon said the strategies to be employed by the program include the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in resource management; generation of appropriate technologies for raw materials production; capacity-building; information, education and communication (IEC) campaigns; and policy studies and advocacy.

The PCARRD official said the program’s overall goal is for the furniture and handicraft industries to attain a 50-70 percent growth rate for the next four years through support for aggressive R&D.

"For the furniture industry, it is targeted that from its 2000 annual export sale of P353 million, this will be raised to $1 billion per year by 2004," he said.

Dr. Rogelio Serrano, acting director of PCARRD’s forestry and environment research division, said the program’s policy component will also conduct an in-depth study into the graft-ridden harvesting and transport of raw materials for furniture and handicraft, facilitate the drafting and issuance of a remedial Department Administrative Order (DAO), and assist in its initial implementation and monitoring.

Dr. Evangeline Castillo, ERDB supervising science research specialist and program leader, said that one component .