from goodnewspilipinas.com
On the way to the site where native food chain Binalot Fiesta Foods obtains some of its banana leaves, President and CEO Rommel Juan is getting a crash course on dealing with Aeta tribesmen. “Apparently they prefer to be called ‘kulot’ (curly) instead of Aeta,” he says. “I’m surprised. In Manila we always thought it was a derogatory term.”
Juan is visiting the second site of his DAHON (Dangal at Hanapbuhay Para sa Nayon) Program, which sources leaves directly from farmers instead of going through middlemen. “Our initial site in Laguna is still active but we’re looking for additional sources,” explains Juan. “We discovered that the highlands here (in Zambales) have a lot of ‘butuan’ banana plants whose fruits are delicious only to birds and bats, which is perfect since we only need leaves.”
The Aeta communities reside near the bananas, which is why Binalot tapped them for the northern DAHON program. But, unlike the Laguna farmers, Juan and company have to contend with a different culture. “Sa Nagcarlan wala lang silang opportunities,” (In Nagcarlan they just have less opportunities) explains Juan “we only needed to train them to use the resources they have. Here, most of them are content with subsistence farming.”Continue reading→