Move over macadamia nut, here comes pili

SORSOGON CITY – The pili fruit offers various delightful treats. After blanching the fresh black nut for several minutes, dip it in white sugar, patis or kuyog. Or enjoy the sweet and crispy nut cooked in honey or syrup.

With almost 70 percent of the pili supply in Bicol coming from this province, provincial and city officials saw the opportunity to develop pili as a high value crop and as future substitute for Macadamia nut.

Sixty years ago, pili didn’t seem to have any commercial value. Children used the fruits as bets in a game called sensito.

The potentials of pili as a commercial crop started to be recognized only when Don Antonio Rigidor, a Spaniard, put up the Albay Pili Nut Candy Factory in 1936. He was bestowed the Panday Pira Award for Excellence in 1971 for his pioneering effort. Soon enough, the use of pili as raw materials for candies spread to other towns and provinces in the region.

Pili has a lot of uses. The kernel is made into candies, confectioneries and food additives while the green pulp can be pickled or fed to swine and cattle. The dried pulp contains about seven percent protein. The oil extract can be used in making soap, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

Its hard shell is an excellent raw material for charcoal. The activated carbon can be used in decolorizing sugar and air and can be a good water purifier, filter for jet fumes in airports as well as filter for general use and deodorizer.

The sap can be processed into paint, adhesives, printing ink, fire and water proofing as well as in lithography. Resins from the trunk can be used as plaster and varnish. Lumber derived from pili tree is good for making furniture, locker and flooring.

As an evergreen tree, it makes for can excellent border tree windbreaker, and shade crop for abaca.

To give the industry a boost, Gov. Rani Lee signed on Oct. 6, 1999 Executive Order No 8 creating the Sorsogon Provincial Pili Industry Development Council (SPPIDC).

Lee organized the council after the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) declared pili (Canarium ovatum Engl.) as a commodity champion for development in the province of Sorsogon while the Department of Agriculture under its Agriculturang Makamasa program considers it as a high-value commercial crop. The BCARRD recently identified pili as Bicol’s flagship commodity.

One of the aims of the council is to prevent indiscriminate cutting of the pili tree in order to sustain the production of pili nuts and attain full commercialization of the industry. The council aims to enlist the participation of 135,632 households in the province’s 16 municipalities in the program.

Bella Duran, assistant provincial agriculturist, said 332,000 pili seedlings had been delivered to the various households. Each household is given five seedlings. The provincial government has already bought some 305,770 pili seedlings from 20 to 18 and 6 weeks at a total cost of 2,318,658 million.

To meet distribution targets, a 7,117-hectare pili nursery has been put up in Juban town for asexual propagation.

Duran said ordinary pili seedlings bear fruit in seven years. If the young fruit or potot is well fertilized it bears fruit within five years. Asexually propagated seedlings bear fruit much faster-after only two to three years.

She said the biggest pili tree in the province is in Barangay San Isidro in Bacon district and it was cited during the search for the biggest and the oldest pili tree in the region.

Its not true that evil spirits inhabit in those large pili trees," she quipped.

A plant-now-pay-later program is being offered to those who have 10 or more hectares which they would like to plant to pili. Pili seedlings are also readily available for every farmer as well as plantings in the barangays and schools.

She said some 47,000 pili seedlings have been delivered in Sorsogon, 41,000 in Bulan; Gubat, 29,000; 28,000 Pilar, 23,000 Castilla; 22,000 for both Bacon and Irosin; Donsol, 20,000; 19,000 Magallanes; 16,000 Matnog; 14,000 Casiguran; 13,000 Juban; 11,000 Bulusan; 10,000 for both Barcelona and Prieto Diaz and 7,000 in Sta. Magdalena.

"Sorsogon is the pili basket in Bicol," said Duran, adding that the aim of the SPPIDC is to make it the number one pili producer in the country.

In support of the growing industry, Mayor Sally Lee provided an initial funding of P25,000 for pili processors.

"We will be able to support those small pili candy makers," said Lee, who cherishes the hope that one day coconut will be replaced by pili." We are promoting pili kung saan ito… puweding gamitin."

Irma Guhit, Philippine Information Agency (PIA) provincial head, told The STAR that a memorandum of agreement is being ironed out with Mendeyee, an Italian chocolate-maker company to import pili nuts at least twice a month.

Guhit said the company wants to come out with new chocolate products using pili nuts which taste better than Macadamia nuts.