MikeLigalig.com

From its modest mounds, kinampay Bol-anon, touted as the most aromatic of all purple yam varieties in the Philippines gets to be celebrated anew with the annual Bohol Ube Festival this January 25-27 at the Bohol Cultural Center.

Popularizing the Bohol ube kinampay seemingly needs more than just getting it into the Bohol Hymn, local officials have united in putting up an annual event to promote and help the ube growing farmers sell their harvest, said Eleno Evangelista of the Office of the Provincial Agriculture.

At the weekly Kapihan sa PIA, Evangelista and Crops Division chief Sergio Cuaco were sent by OPA Larry Pamugas to drumbeat on the upcoming root-crop’s flea market of ideas.

“Kinampay,” the rootcrop that has been the main ingredient for the purple ubejam, ice-cream, masa podridas and other home cook ideas and Bohol’s pride as the queen of Philippine yams, would be the queen product of the fair.

Now sold at a more expensive price of about P50.oo a kilo, the penchant for the real kinampay among commercial food processors has not tapered or dissuaded them from getting it here, said Cuaco.

Another variety of the purple yam, a truly deep purple but less aromatic, the “baligon-hon” is also commercially available, but its sales could not topple the kinampay, he said.

Both kinampay and baligonhon belong to the purple ube varieties and are among the more expensive, added Eleno Evangelista of the marketing and promotion section of the aggie office.

Other than the kinampay and the baligonhon, white varieties are also up for sale at the festival venue, Evangelista said.

Among the most common commercial white varieties are kabus-ok, tam-isan, binanag, baliko, iniling and gimnay, all of them making their commercial debuts after the industry has been considered a little above the backyard farm production classification.

Grown in almost all of Bohol especially in areas where there is good drainage system, ube, (dioscorea alata) shows enough promise as experts said a hectare can harvest about 4 tons.

Now a priority rootcrop in Bohol, ube, has shown promise with majority of Central Visayas supplies coming from Bohol, sources at the OPA said.

Basing from the calls we get from buyers and investors, our ube is the hope of farmers, but the problem of price has consistently bugged us, admits Cuaco.

Sourcing our planting materials alone costs farmers immensely that pricing is usually determined at this factor, Cuaco, who hints that farmers could be helped with new propagation technologies. (racPIABohol)

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=37117.0