In a previous post, I wrote about moringa (Iloc. – marunggi; Tag. – malunggay) and its many uses as medicine and as food enhancer. At the recent Kannawidan Ylocos Festival trade fair in Vigan, the Cabugao booth featured miki-lunggay, which is miki - a popular Ilocano flour pasta – fortified with malunggay. Published reports on the Internet say moringa can also be used as a water purifier and cooking oil, animal feed, and, who knows, maybe a myriad other uses still waiting to be discovered. Just recently I came across old news that our favorite malunggay has also potential as a biofuel. Another ray of sunshine in the Philippines’ future?

There is interest from outside the country in malunggay seeds as biofuel. Already, Secura International, a local biotech company, is partnering with the Kalungay Farmers of Camarines Sur and FDC Lanao Moringa Farmers Association, Inc. in the cultivation of malunggay to cater to US demand for biofuel. The expanding uses of moringa is likely to encourage commercial farming, increasing rural incomes. However, being a source of food especially in developing countries like the Philippines, and more especially for the poor, it might create the same controversy that is now pervading the corn-as-biofuel movement in the context of the food vs. biofuel debate. One report says a confidential World Bank study (I guess it’s no longer confidential) attributes the food crisis to the diversion of corn into the energy sector. The demand for corn as biofuel competed with the demand for corn as food (for cattle and up the food chain), and as economics goes, this increase in demand pushed the price of corn up, hence, prices of corn-dependent products that include meat from cattle.

Of course corn is a more significant food crop than moringa, because it goes into the production of more food products. Moringa, on the other hand, does not account for a large portion of our primary food sources. Moreover, malunggay is a backyard plant; it is seldom sold in wet markets because it can be readily available for free from a neighbor or a friend, if you don’t have it in your backyard.

Supporters of the malunggay-as-biofuel push it in place of jatropha-as-biofuel and they assure that commercial cultivation of moringa as biofuel will not compete for land for the cultivation of food crops. While we may eventually benefit from malunggay as an alternative energy source, this rush to devote thousands of hectares of land to cultivate the plant to supply the biofuels demand of foreigners means we could be spreading our meager resources too thin in view of intensifying efforts to harness the use of jatropha as a biofuel for our own use. Researchers claim an extraction facility to process biofuel from moringa seeds costs Php250M. On the other hand, jatropha processing facilities have probably been set up by now. Let us weigh things where jatropha and moringa as biofuels are concerned. The country has invested much in jatropha already and to suddenly make a detour toward moringa will put all that investment to waste. Remember the moth-balled Bataan Nuclear Power Plant? We, Filipinos should not go blindly and excitedly where the cash is, in this case the rich western economies interested in malunggay as biofuel.

If we were to develop biofuel from moringa, let it be used to first solve our energy problem, before we use it to take care of the energy problem of other nations – yes, a hark back to Pres. Carlos P. Garcia’s Filipino First Policy, which still makes a lot of sense even in this era of globalization. After all, the biofuels act (R.A. No. 9367, Sec. 2-a) does state: “develop AND UTILIZE (emphasis mine) indigenous renewable and sustain ably-sourced clean energy sources to reduce dependence on imported oil;” it does not say, “develop AND EXPORT” these alternative energy sources.

Meanwhile, we have current applications of malunggay for direct use of Filipinos that are yet to be fully harnessed. Let’s be mindful and not lose sight of the other equally important uses in the food and pharmaceutical industry, which could help solve malnutrition among the poor and ease the burden of expensive medicines in the country. We need resources to research on these other potential uses of moringa. Let not the publicity on moringa as biofuel (for foreign markets at the moment) eclipse its importance in solving malnutrition among poor Filipinos.

Filed under: Environment, February 2009, Health and food | You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.