Imee backs effort to protect indigenous food plants

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna, Philippines  — Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos has committed her support for a program to protect and conserve the vanishing indigenous food plants (IFP) species in the province.

The new provincial chief executive expressed her administration’s commitment to the program of the Mariano Marcos State University in recent talks with MMSU officials headed by Dr. Miriam E. Pascua, president.

MMSU is a six-campus institution of higher learning in Ilocos Norte whose seat of administration is the main campus in Batac City.

The IFP program is an offshoot of a research project conducted by an MMSU research team titled “Survey and Characterization of Indigenous Food Plants in Ilocos Norte, Philippines”.

The study was done by Menisa Antonio, Epifanio Agustin, Dionisio Jamias, Rodel Utrera, Araceli Badar, and Miriam Pascua with funding support from the Los Baños-based Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization-Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEAMEO SEARCA) through its Seed Fund for Research and Training.

Government-hosted SEARCA, headed by Director Gil C. Saguiguit Jr., is one of the 19 regional “centers of excellence” of SEAMEO, an intergovernment treaty organization founded in 1965 to foster cooperation among Southeast Asian nations in the fields of education, science, and culture.

As an offshoot of the SEARCA-supported research, a genebank (seedbank) has been set up at MMSU, which has metamorphosed into one of the country’s outstanding stage colleges and universities (SCU).

Dr. Pascua also told The STAR that Gov. Marcos is supporting MMSU’s plant to establish a Biodiversity Center which will, among other things, address the problems concerning Ilocos Norte’s disappearing indigenous food plants.

The governor envisions the center as among the province’s come-on to visitors and tourists, especially those concerned with genetic resources of Ilocos Norte, which forms Luzon’s sun-drenched and wind-caressed northwesternmost flank.

Over the years, the MMSU research team observed, IFP’s have become an integral part of the daily diets of many rural households in the province, particularly the tribal groups such as Tingguian, Yapayao, Igorot, and Isneg.

It documented 46 IFPs representing 25 plant families found in Ilocos Norte. The IFPs include herbs, palms, shrubs and undershrubs, vines or lianas, grasses, and trees in seven remote upland towns.

Some of the now rare plants were also found in agricultural areas.

Most (79 percent) of the identified IFPs abound in Adams town. The other IFP-rich municipalities are Bangui, Pagudpud, Vintar, Nueva Era, Dumalneg, and Carasi.

“Despite possible genetic erosion brought about by adverse environmental changes, there are still insignificant efforts to safeguard and conserve this component of agrobiodiversity,” the MMSU researchers noted.

“Therefore,” they asserted, “there is a need to encourage all concerned stakeholders for possible collaboration toward sustainable conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources.”