Here’s one awesome reason you should save your calamansi seeds–the Aetas in Yangil, Zambales can use them to grow calamansi trees. Apparently, the land where the Aetas live was covered in lahar after Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption in 1991. Reforestation efforts in the past decades have largely failed as the soil is dry and will not hold water. But a group of volunteers is not giving up. They have made some progress in planting up the area.
But they need calamansi seeds, seedlings, or cuttings. According to Raf Dionisio, one of the volunteers, the best gift we can give the Aeta tribes is ‘sustainability.’
I wanted to ask for your seeds which you might throw away after your juice or cooking. If you own a resto, fruit stand, fruit shake store, or supermarket, or know someone that does, they will also have some seeds or rotting fruit as trash which we can use to plant. Can you help us get seeds?
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The tribes with the help of the volunteers have succeeded in growing some trees but they need more calamansi seeds so they can grow more. The goal is to launch an agri-business. Calamansi trees live for 50 years, shares Raf. They start bearing 1kg of fruit per year at age 3 and bear up to 50kg of fruit per tree per year at 10 years old. Each kilo is at least 20 fruits. Each fruit has 4-10 seeds. One seed can produce millions of other seeds during its lifetime as a tree, especially if its offspring seeds are planted, he explains.
Two to three years from now, when these trees begin to bloom, they will earn their own money and be empowered to make their own decision. No more begging.
How to donate your calamansi seeds
Just drop off the dried seeds at Llanar building along Xavierville Avenue in Quezon City or at The Circle Hostel in Zambales. You can also send Raf a personal message on Facebook.
We highly encourage everyone to help save seeds from food waste…BUT If you want to donate fruit and just have us harvest the seeds after, that is also welcome. We will just prepare lot of fruit juice with the Aetas, or you might want to do a lot of juice yourself.
Raf made his call out last December. See below. Click on it to see the entire post and to contact him.
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I’m so inspired! Aren’t you? I believe that this undertaking will have a lasting and sustained impact not just to the Aeta communities but also to the entire planet. I look forward to the time where formerly lahar-covered villages will be green with fruit trees and vegetables. And all we need to do to make that happen is to save our calamansi seeds.
And donate them to Raf.
Besides Calamansi juice, what else can we make with calamansi? Share your ideas below!
