Private businesses in Mindanao have committed to partner with government to put up rubber plantations in conflict-stricken areas in Mindanao, in a bid to solve the poverty problem and ultimately promote peace in the region.

Edwin Capili, vice president for Mindanao of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said this was the private sector’s contribution to government’s efforts to restore peace in Mindanao.

“To resolve conflict, we need to address poverty. We can do this by planting rubber. We want to partner with government to put up seed banks so we can propagate rubber and give livelihood to the people of Mindanao,” he told reporters.

The main focus of the rubber project, he said, would be Maguindanao, noting the huge tracts of idle land in the area that could be planted with rubber. The project could also extend to other areas in Mindanao to cover the 20,000-hectare target for the initiative.

Initially, he related that seedlings would be given to specific pilot communities for planting and nurturing.

For this project, the rubber variety that would be used could be tapped only after four years, he said. In the meantime, cash crops could be planted to help provide livelihood to the rubber planters.

“This is where the government can come in. We also need the government to provide technical support to the pilot communities. We in the private sector will invest in seed banks and eventually in the processing side also,” he said.

Based on current data, he said each hectare of land planted with rubber could support a family of six.

Since rubber prices follow the trajectory of world oil prices, and oil prices have remained relatively high throughout the year, prospects for the rubber business are rosy.

The price of rubber is currently placed at around P28 a kilo.

Capili said the project should start by the first quarter of next year, with the output to be sold both in the domestic market and exported—-semi-processed-—to Japan.

(Syed Rashid Ali, Karachi, Pakistan)