Santa Barbara, Pangasinan—This first-class farming town in the heart of Pangasinan does not have just rice and mangoes as economic gears for its residents: it has slowly become deeply involved in basic cornhusk transformation.
A great part of Santa Barbara, 170 kilometers from Manila, is fast getting urbanized, but the main economic activity remains farming.
Rice remains the town’s main crop with 6,662 hectares, or close to all its total tillable lands devoted to rice farming, followed by mango, of which the town is famous for as the home of age-old Philippine mango seedling nurseries—the two are the only crops raised in all its 29 barangays.
The third most important crop is a variety of vegetables, followed by corn. Legumes and root crops are grown in small quantities.
Their livestock include several head of cattle, water buffaloes or carabaos, hogs, goats and dogs. They also raise native chickens for their food and some poultry farms commercially produce chicken layers and broilers.
In recent months, the Agricultural Training Institute-Regional Training Center 1 conducted the Training on Enterprise Development: Basic Corn Husk Transformation at the ATI-RTC 1I in Barangay Tebag here.
The training, in support of livelihood projects, included technical and financial assistance for the RBOs or rural-based organizations.
The participants, who included 4-H club members and their coordinators, came from the upland town of Salcedo in Ilocos Sur, the river side town of Sudipen in La Union, as well as from Manaoag, San Carlos City, this town, and Mangaldan in Pangasinan.
Sources say the training covered an overview of the course followed by the actual application on sorting, coloring, dying and drying of cornhusks.
Various flower designs or arrangements using cornhusks were taught to the participants, with emphasis on quality finished products, according to the sources.
There were also hands-on demonstrations on how to make different corsages. Other handicrafts made by the participants were Christmas decors, ropes, mobile phone holders, and bags.
Sources quoted Jocelyn Ong-Perez, owner and manager of Crafter’s Joy Cornhusk Products, as raising words of encouragement in her message to the participants.
Perez, of Basista town, not far from here, said cornhusk is a promising enterprise.
But what is corn husking?
This is the process of removing the inner layers, leaving only the cob or seed rack of the corn.
Dehulling, as a separate process, is removing the hulls (or chaff) from beans and other seeds. This is sometimes done using a machine known as a huller.
In Third World countries like the Philippines, husking and dehulling are still often done by hand using a large mortar and pestle. These are usually made of wood, and operated by one or more people.
The husk is biodegradable and may be composted.
Sources have quoted Perez as saying: “At first no one knows how to make it, but everything could be learned through training and practice to improve the quality of the product. And you must love what you’re doing.”
Sources say Santa Barbara, out of its farm products, has developed its own food processing industry that includes the making of rice cakes like “latik” and “sinuman,” nata de coco making, and pickles from different fruits.
It also has a highly developed clay tiles and pottery industry, coupled with non-farm based processing industries like candle and soap making, and the making of hollow blocks for construction.
Santa Barbara’s business and trading center in and around the public market features a variety of wholesale and retail and other services establishments, from farm inputs to construction materials.
The market serves as the place where its people buy their needs and sell their produce. A large fleet of individually owned tricycles serves as transportation between the commercial center and the many barangays.
Some say Santa Barbara’s close geographical proximity to Urdaneta City has restrained the growth of its trading sector.
But the town continues to take pride in its agri non-manufactured products: rice, yellow corn, vegetables (okra, squash, beans, eggplant, tomato and ampalaya), mango, and fisheries.
Its manufactured products include nata de coco, deboned and marinated smoked fish, rice cakes, papaya pickles, “malunggay” (horse radish) noodles, red bricks, hollow blocks, handicrafts, bamboo and rattan furniture.