Malunggay (Moringa) brings good tidings to a family in Naga (Philippines)
By Juan Escandor Jr.
NAGA CITY—Liza Ordas could not forget the slightly bitter taste of a glass of green malunggay (Moringa oeifera) juice their mother would force them to drink at least twice a week when she was just a child.
Now a 40-year-old married mother of two, Ordas claimed the regular doses of malunggay juice she intakes has worked wonders on her health pointing out that never in her lifetime was she ever afflicted with serious illness as far as she remembers.
Ordas’ mother, a native of Tarlac, possesses the folk knowledge that malunggay is very nutritious with medicinal properties which Ilocanos embraced in their cuisine sans coconut milk, as it is prepared here in Bicol, she said.
“The Ilocanos mix malunggay leaves, flowers and young pods in their pakbet, bulanglang and other dishes and the old folks chew and ingest matured seeds to remedy pain and infection,” Ordas claimed.
She said her mother explained that since the leaves are hard to digest she devised a way of extracting the juice by boiling them, then strained and served to them in tall glasses as green liquid.
Malunggay, aside from being considered poor man’s vegetable, is a butt of joke in the locality because its leaves are considered to be indigestible one, remaining intact even after going through the human digestive process.
But in countless researches, Moringa had been acknowledged to possess nutritional value, antioxidant, anti-aging compounds and many more which prompted the World Health Organization to utilize it as cheap health supplement in poverty stricken countries, especially in Africa where it also grows in abundance.
Ordas said she searched far and wide, so to speak, about the Moringa and its products in available reading materials and the internet because she was confident she can make whatever business opportunity awaits her besides providing their family regular supplement to enhance their w ell-being.
The determination to make Moringa work in her favor was non-negotiable as the internet café business was waning and she could not bear to see her capital just in time.
She gathered more information by talking to health experts and met and chatted with a German doctor named Uwe Mueller at moringanews.com about the subject which greatly enhanced his appreciation of the benefits of Moringa. She said Mueller came over here to further promote the benefits of the ‘wonder plant’ as food supplement sometime in 2008.
Ordas, a graduate of Biology and Anthropology courses at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City in 1992, discovered that most of the Moringa products she learned from the internet were from India but she noted the products were so limited which made her optimistic that many more could be developed given its properties.
After about three months researching about Moringa, she and her husband Bimboy sold their internet café business and embarked on the production of capsules from dried powder, and experimented on it by making her family the ‘guinea pigs.’
“In the first weeks, we experienced discharging oily compounds which I later confirmed as one of the cleansing effects of malunggay in our bodies by flashing out fats and toxins from our systems,” Ordas said.
She said the malunggay capsules also cleansed her husband of kidney stones and relieved her mother of hypertension and vertigo by regularly taking them thrice a day.
Ordas said her enthusiasm towards developing products from Moringa was so overwhelming after experiencing first hand its health benefits so that there were times she has to get up in the middle of the night just to take down notes that kept on popping in her head.
“I had ideas and concepts inside my head how to process and extract products from malunggay that I wrote down in details which became the prototype of what I am manufacturing now,” she enthused.
Ordas recalled they closed down their internet café in 2007 to concentrate in producing Moringa products which demand started to grow upon participation in trade fairs of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and through direct selling.
“We started commercial production of Moringa capsules in small volume as order came in one at a time which grew over time prompting my husband to approach a childhood friend to pitch in so that we can expand our production because the capital we have from the sale of the internet café could not fund,” she narrated.
Ordas revealed Bimboy shared to his childhood friend all the trade secrets in producing Moringa capsules when they made a partnership agreement that she said never took off.
She said after a month or so her husband’s childhood friend withdrew his investment by reasoning that he lost interest in Moringa and wanted to concentrate in some other business venture.
To their dismay, Ordas and Bimboy discovered later, after her husband’s childhood friend’s withdrawal from their business venture that their supposed partner had already gone solo in producing his own Moringa capsules.
“He (husband’s childhood friend) copied everything from the procedures to product package which really hurt me. But instead of being discouraged by the thought of facing an unfair competition, I was driven further to develop other products aside from Moringa capsules,” she said.
With renewed determination to beat the odds, they put-up their own factory in their yard in Calauag, Naga City and poured in all the money they had and braced to make new products that were already in Ordas’ drawing board.
“It was a painful lesson (partnership with her husband’s friend) I had to learn but I am confident nobody else but me has the idea of the other products that I am going to make. We resorted to borrowing from our friends to continue our venture until it started to thrive,” she said.
Ordas registered her business venture at the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) under Ordas Kalungay (Bicol word for malunggay) Depot which finally formalized their entry into the manufacturing industry.
She said the DTI has helped them develop their systems from labeling, packaging to marketing with the help of her husband who designed the product presentation.
Ordas explored all avenues to market her products through the internet as her Australian friend gave her free website hosting with the domain name www.kalungaydepot.com aside from posting her Moringa products in e-commerce sites like alibaba.com and sulit.com.ph.
With orders and inquiries about her products streamed in from the internet, she decided to transform her enterprise into a family corporation and registered it with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as Moringa Green Health International Corp.
Ordas said she is fortunate she has friends who lent her additional capital with very low interest rates which enabled her to expand her factory, upgrade her equipment and better package her products. She was also granted P600,000 worth of packaging equipment by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
She said marketing opportunities has come her way now as she was able to sign an agreement with a Korean buyer who initiated wider product exposure in leading newspapers and magazines in Korea and Japan.
Acquiring the green light this year from Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) of her production process and products, Ordas’ Moringa business that now sells by-products like soap, wine, juice, tea and oil, aside from the capsules, are making inroads into the local and international markets, after only three years in business.
At present, Ordas’ family-run and operated business can produce in a day 500 capsules, 500 bottles of 15 ml Moringa green oil, 100 bars of soap, 100 bottles of wine, 200 bottles of concentrated Moringa juice and 20 kilos of tea upon order.
I could not believe myself the present interest of so many with the tree called “moringa,” as I received so many feedbacks after I wrote some articles about it and its economic and nutritional benefits. Believe it or not, one of my always read articles on this blog falls under tag moringa. Maybe because global trading is now pointing to organics and people these days are getting more health conscious. One of which is “how to plant moringa?
I have to admit that though have the knowledge, I am not yet an expert on moringa farming. Nonetheless, I knew one writer who has written a more precise suggestion and fit to where it most needed these days… “Africa.” Allow me to excerpt from the writings of Lowell J. Fuglie and K. V. Sreeja …
Quote:
Moringa oleifera (“Malunggay” in Philippine native language) is believed to be native to sub-Himalayan tracts of northern India but is now found worldwide in the tropics and sub-tropics. It grows best in direct sunlight under 500 meters altitude. It tolerates a wide range of soil conditions, but prefers a neutral to slightly acidic (pH. 6.3-7.0), well-drained sandy or loamy soil. Minimum annual rainfall requirements are estimated at 250mm with maximum at over 3,000mm, but in waterlogged soil the roots have a tendency to rot. (In areas with heavy rainfall, trees can be planted on small hills to encourage water run-off). Presence of a long taproot makes it resistant to periods of drought. Trees can be easily grown from seed or from cuttings. Temperature ranges are 25-35 degrees Celsius (0-95 degrees Fahrenheit), but the tree will tolerate up to 48 degrees in the shade and it can survive a light frost. Moringa seeds have no dormancy period, so they can be planted as soon as they are mature and they will retain the ability to germinate for up to one year. Moringa trees will flower and fruit annually and in some regions twice annually. During its first year, a Moringa tree will grow up to five meters in height and produce flowers and fruit. Left alone, the tree can eventually reach 12 meters in height with a trunk 30cm wide; however, the tree can be annually cut back to one meter from the ground. The tree will quickly recover and produce leaves and pods within easy reach. Within three years a tree will yield 400-600 pods annually and a mature tree can produce up to 1,600 pods.
IN THE NURSERY:
Use poly bags with dimensions of about 18cm in height and 12cm in diameter. The soil mixture for the sacks should be light, i.e. 3 parts soil to 1 part sand. Plant two or three seeds in each sack, one to two centimeters deep. Keep moist but not too wet. Germination will occur within 5 to 12 days, depending on the age of the seed and pre-treatment method used. Remove extra seedlings, leaving one in each sack. Seedlings can be out-planted when they are 60-90cm high. When out-planting, cut a hole in the bottom of the sack big enough to allow the roots to emerge. Be sure to retain the soil around the roots of the seedling.
To encourage rapid germination, one of three pre-seeding treatments can be employed:
1. Soak the seeds in water overnight before planting.
2. Crack the shells before planting.
3. Remove shells and plant kernels only.
IN THE FIELD:
If planting a large plot it is recommended to first plough the land. Prior to planting a seed or seedling, dig a planting pit about 50cm in depth and the same in width. This planting hole serves to loosen the soil and helps to retain moisten in the root zone, enabling the seedlings’ roots to develop rapidly. Compost or manure at the rate of 5kg per pit can be mixed with the fresh topsoil around the pit and used to fill the pit. Avoid using the soil taken out of the pit for this purpose: fresh topsoil contains beneficial microbes that can promote more effective root growth. The day before out planting, water the filled pits or wait until a good rain before out-planting seedlings. Fill in the hole before transplanting the seedling. In areas of heavy rainfall, the soil can be shaped in the form of a mound to encourage drainage. Do not water heavily for the first few days. If the seedlings fall over, tie them to stick 40cm high for support.
DIRECT SEEDING:
If water is available for irrigation (i.e., in a backyard garden), trees can be seeded directly and grown anytime during the year. Prepare a planting pit first, water, and then fill in the pit with topsoil mixed with compost or manure before planting seeds. In a large field, trees can be seeded directly at the beginning of the wet season.
GROWING FROM CUTTINGS:
Use hard wood, not green wood, for cuttings. Cuttings should be 45cm to 1.5m long and 10cm thick. Cuttings can be planted directly or planted in sacks in the nursery. When planting directly, plant the cuttings in light, sandy soil. Plant one-third of the length in the ground (i.e., if the cutting is 1.5m long, plant it 50cm deep). Do not over water; if the soil is too heavy or wet, the roots may rot. When the cuttings are planted in the nursery, the root system is slow to develop. Add phosphorus to the soil if possible to encourage root development. Cuttings planted in a nursery can be out-planted after 2 or 3 months.
SPACING:
For intensive Moringa production, plant the tree every 3 meters in rows 3 meters apart. To ensure sufficient sunlight and airflow, it is also recommended to plant the trees in an east-west direction. When the trees are part of an alley-cropping system, there should be 10 meters between the rows. The area between trees should be kept free of weeds.
Trees are often spaced in a line one meter or less apart in order to create living fence posts. Trees are also planted to provide support for climbing crops such as pole beans, although only mature trees should be used for this purpose since the vine growth can choke off the young tree. Moringa trees can be planted in gardens; the tree’s root system does not compete with other crops for surface nutrients and the light shade provided by the tree will be beneficial to those vegetables which are less tolerant to direct sunlight. From the second year onwards, Moringa can be inter-cropped with maize, sunflower and other field crops. Sunflower is particularly recommended for helping to control weed growth. However, Moringa trees are reported to be highly competitive with eggplant (Solanum melongena) and sweet corn (Zea mays) and can reduce their yields by up to 50%.
PINCHING THE TERMINAL TIPS:
When the seedlings reach a height of 60cm in the main field, pinch (trim) the terminal growing tip 10cm from the top. This can be done using fingers since the terminal growth is tender, devoid of bark fiber and brittle, and therefore easily broken. A shears or knife blade can also be used. Secondary branches will begin appearing on the main stem below the cut about a week later. When they reach a length of 20cm, cut these back to 10cm. Use a sharp blade and make a slanting cut. Tertiary branches will appear, and these are also to be pinched in the same manner. This pinching, done four times before the flowers appear (when the tree is about three months old), will encourage the tree to become bushy and produce many pods within easy reach. Pinching helps the tree develop a strong production frame for maximizing the yield. If the pinching is not done, the tree has a tendency to shoot up vertically and grow tall, like a mast, with sparse flowers and few fruits found only at the very top.
For annual Moringa types, directly following the end of the harvest, cut the tree’s main trunk to about 90cm from ground level. About two weeks later 15 to 20 sprouts will appear below the cut. Allow only 4-5 robust branches to grow and nib the remaining sprouts while they are young, before they grow long and harden. Continue the same pinching process as done with new seedlings so as to make the tree bushy. After the second crop, the trees can be removed and new seedlings planted for maximum productivity.
For perennial Moringa types, remove only the dead and worn out branches every year. Once in four or five years, cut the tree back to one meter from ground level and allow re-growth.
WATERING:
Moringa trees do not need much watering. In very dry conditions, water regularly for the first two months and afterwards only when the tree is obviously suffering. Moringa trees will flower and produce pods whenever there is sufficient water available. If rainfall is continuous throughout the year, Moringa trees will have a nearly continuous yield. In arid conditions, flowering can be induced through irrigation.
FERTILIZING:
Moringa trees will generally grow well without adding very much fertilizer. Manure or compost can be mixed with the soil used to fill the planting pits. Phosphorus can be added to encourage root development and nitrogen will encourage leaf canopy growth. In some parts of India, 15cm-deep ring trenches are dug about 10cm from the trees during the rainy season and filled with green leaves, manure and ash. These trenches are then covered with soil. This approach is said to promote higher pod yields. Research done in India has also showed that applications of 7.5kg farmyard manure and 0.37kg ammonium sulfate per tree can increase pod yields threefold.
PESTS AND DISEASES:
Moringa is resistant to most pests. In very water-logged conditions, Diplodia root rot can occur. In very wet conditions, seedlings can be planted in mounds so that excess water is drained off. Cattle, sheep, pigs and goats will eat Moringa seedlings, pods and leaves. Protect Moringa seedlings from livestock by installing a fence or by planting a living fence around the plantation. A living fence can be grown with Jatropha curcas, whose seeds also produce an oil good for soap-making. For mature trees, the lower branches can be cut off so that goats will not be able to reach the leaves and pods. Termites can be a problem, especially when cuttings are planted.
Among approaches recommended to protect seedlings from termite attack:
• Apply mulches of castor oil plant leaves, mahogany chips, tephrosia leaves or Persian lilac leaves around the base of the plants.
• Heap ashes around the base of seedlings.
• Dry and crush stems and leaves of lion’s ear or Mexican poppy and spread the dust around the base of plants.
In India, various caterpillars are reported to cause defoliation unless controlled by spraying. The budworm Noordia moringae and the scale insects Diaspidotus sp. and Ceroplastodes cajani are reportedly able to cause serious damage. Also mentioned as pests in India are Aphis craccibora, the borer Diaxenopsis apomecynoides and the fruit fly Gitonia sp. Elsewhere in the world, where Moringa is an introduced tree, local pests are less numerous.
HARVESTING:
When harvesting pods for human consumption, harvest when the pods are still young (about 1cm in diameter) and snap easily. Older pods develop a tough exterior, but the white seeds and flesh remain edible until the ripening process begins.
When producing seed for planting or for oil extraction, allow the pods to dry and turn brown on the tree. In some cases, it may be necessary to prop up a branch that holds many pods to prevent it breaking off. Harvest the pods before they split open and seeds fall to the ground. Seeds can be stored in well-ventilated sacks in dry, shady places.
For making leaf sauces, harvest seedlings, growing tips or young leaves. Older leaves must be stripped from the tough and wiry stems. These older leaves are more suited to making dried leaf powder since the stems are removed in the pounding and sifting process.
Unquote:
Below are the common Rice Brand and Varieties we offer and trade in the Philippines.
We need an Investor to keep us going (local rice trade). We are no ordinary trader… we are direct to the Millers who directly buys from farmers so our price is cheaper and buyers prefer us.
Bamboo
Dinorado
Gold Cup
Long Grain
Glutinous Rice (“Malagkit” in Philippine native language)
MGM Whole Grain
R-64
Sinandomeng
Strawberry
Wagwag
There’s more!
If you are interested in having rice trading business or support a rice/agriculture pursuit in the Philippines, you can contact me directly at denissalvatierra@yahoo.com
Our Credible Business Plan is available upon request.
As per Police report, 38 year old Hollywood Actor Corey Haim, was pronounced dead after 3 a.m. at a Burbank hospital. No further details was mentioned as the case is still under investigation. Nonetheless, it was told that a police spokesman said more details would be available later.
Records shows that Haim, struggled with drug problems in the past years.
Corey Haim had been living in the San Fernando Valley. He previously appeared in some popular movies in the 1980s and recently tried to relaunch his career with a reality TV show.
Gen. Larry Platt is already a celebrity as he was recognized by a passenger in a plane he boarded while on his way back home from The Grammys. As per report, Gen. Larry Platt made a surprise performance of his famous song, “Pants on the Ground.“ Platt’s manager relayed the news with TMZ.
Another thing. The plane’s flight’s pilots and attendants made Platt the last person to went out to meet him.
Beyoncé set a record for women with six Grammy Awards. Nonetheless, she was not able to get the Album of the Year. It was grab by the 20-year-old country-pop princess Taylor Swift.
For a full blown list of awardees, kindly click to link below:
Google is now the world’s most popular Internet search engine. Google has both fame and fortune as it earned huge profits and given influence over the online world, since its foundation on 1998. Because of the search engine as Google, the world became smaller and accessible in a matter of seconds.
Best film ensemble goes to the cast of “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Actor trophy goes to Jeff Bridgesfor his portrayal of a hard-living country music singer in “Crazy Heart,”
Best Actress was given to Sandra Bullock for “The Blind Side”
For the second time, the cast of AMC’s 1960s Madison Avenue saga “Mad Men” won the trophy for best drama series ensemble, while 19 cast members of Fox TV newcomer “Glee,” accepted the award for best comedy series ensemble.
Every body deserve break, including General Larry Platt! I’ll bet he’ll sing on final performance night.
The man is 62 years old and he is already a legend in Georgia. He even has his ties to the Civil Rights movement and still remains a community activist in the Atlanta area and recently has become known for publicly protesting foreclosures. He has received commendations to Georgia General Assembly…
