Empowering Women through Corn Husk Handicraft Making

From trash to cash.

The most joyful day of a farmer is upon seeing the crop on maturity stage. After three months of careful management, Alona Daal, a corn farmer of E.G. Montilla, Las Nieves, Agusan del Norte is so excited to harvest her corn field.  After removing the bushel, she just leave the corn husk and other wastes in the farm to let it decompose to incorporate back the nutrients to the soil.

However, she confided that some of her co-farmers resorted to burn farm wastes. But setting farm wates into fire poses an environmental hazard and a violation of the Solid Waste Management Act (RA 9003) and Philippine Clean Air Act of 1999 which prohibit open-field burning, including burning of farm wastes.

One of the farm waste or trash in the corn field is the corn husk, the outer protective covering of an ear of corn. In rough estimate, Caraga Region accumulated around 23.1 ton of corn husk per harvest season.

But do you know that instead of treating corn husk as a trash, there are people that considered it as a gold.

Corn husk can be transformed into very attractive decorative products such as flowers, dolls, gift items perfect for any occasion such as a wedding, graduation, special ceremonies and occassons or just plainly for house and office decorations.

Seeing the potential of the products and to empower women to help augment family's income, DA Caraga through the Corn Program conducted recently a Corn Processing Utilization Training in Butuan City.

The participants who were mostly farmer’s wives were taught on creating gift or decorative products utilizing corn husks through the resource person Ms. Lucila Esdrelon, a retired employee of the Provincial Agriculture Office of the Province of Agusan del Norte.

Notably, few men also took part in the training with equal eagerness to learn the craft.

Lucila Esdrelon appealed to the farmers, not to treat corn husk as farm wastes but an opportunity to earn more.

“Lot of decorative products can be made out of corn husk where wives can maximize their time and help contribute to family’s income,” she said.  

Editha Dedomo, Rural Improvement Club (RIC) Federation President of Esperanza, Agusan del Sur said that she is so happy that she was chosen as one of the participants on the said training as it enhanced her knowledge more on the handicraft making.

“I’ve been doing this craft for quite sometime. During graduation time,  lei out of corn husk is a sought after products, so I can make money of out it, or gift items during a wedding, so it is really a big help for my family,”

Meanwhile, Annabelle Coral, Vice President of the City of Cabadbaran Abaca Handicraft Makers Association Incorporated shared that corn husk handicraft making needs patience and perseverance since you need to give attention up to its minutest detail of the design to come up with an attractive and elegant product,’ she said. 

After the training, various decorative and gift item products had been made that surely capture the eye of the would be costumers. A decor product from corn husk could be sold from P75 and as high as P500.00 depending on its size and intricacy.

Indeed, there is money in trash (may pera sa basura). (Aurelius P. Arais/DA Caraga)

 

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