Southern MIndanao is known also for its agri products and banana is the No. 1 export products of this area.

Major market of this exportable banana is China but this market imposed stringent policies that caught the producers by surprise making it hard for them to enter the (China) market.

In the meantime that this sector is still on the process of meeting the new market requirements, banana trees continue to produce fruits and yet no available market where to ship the products. 

The producers then started looking for options and instead of the fruit going to waste, the banana growers started promoting Cavandish bananas in the local market and sometimes they supply public elementary schools with ripe bananas to school children for free in support of the school's feeding program.  Here's a story I write about the status of  the banana industry here ...   


Davao small banana growers group promotes cavendish bananas in the local market

DAVAO CITY, July 6 (PNA) -- The Federation of Cooperatives (Fedco) in Mindanao, which is composed of small banana farm growers in the island, is considering the local market after their export of cavendish bananas to China remains unstable.

Fedco president Rene Dalayon said with their plan of exploring the local market, they will be assisted by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) under the Department's livelihood program for new businesses.

Dalayon was interviewed during the company's 13th anniversary activity at SIR Elementary School and Bucana Elementary School where they delivered truck loads of ripe bananas and distributed the fruit to over 2,000 pupils in both schools.

Dalayon said the activity was to promote fresh cavendish bananas in the local market especially to kids even as he said that they would like to encourage consumers to patronize the fruit.

"This is also one of the steps that we would like to do to help the small banana growers," he said.He said in their talk with DOLE XI, they proposed for the establishment of a ripening room that will make the shelf life of bananas longer than by just using Ethrel that is being practiced in the market here for ripening of fruits and other agri products but with shorter shelf life.

"But when the bananas are placed in the ripening room, it will prolong the shelf life for up to 40 days," he said.

Fedco is composed of 15 cooperatives and in Davao Region it operates in Davao City, Davao del Norte and Compostela Valley Province. The total area in the island consisted of 4,000 hectares.

Its biggest market is China where they deliver some 1.2 million boxes every week.

Fedco is among the active members under the Davao Region's Banana Industry Cluster where it earned the support of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on Industry Cluster Capacity Enhancement Program.

JICA supported Fedco with establishing export markets that paved the way for small banana farm growers to directly export their bananas.

Fedco used to sell their produce to big companies but they leveled up as direct exporters in 1999 in Japan. 

The Japan market is still ongoing but with very limited volume for highland bananas, and a few in the Middle East, making China as their primary market.

Dalayon said although other exporters had resumed entry to China, still the number is limited.He even said that others resorted to chopping the trees while some are forced to sell the box at a very low cost compared to the export price of 5 dollars per box. 

Per box weighs 13.5 kilos of 80 fingers. Meanwhile, Dalayon said they have started renegotiating with their Middle East market and hopefully would resume business by first week of September.

But he said they cannot go full shipment of their produce there because they have to compete with other exporters as well considering that big banana companies export their bananas to the Middle East.

"We can get a share perhaps and ship about 50 percent of our volume of production," he said.Just like what President Aquino has been saying, he said they are also exploring other markets like the US.(PNA)FPV/PrixDDBanzon/ldp/utb

Agri-based economy remains strong in Mindanao

A leader in rural banking sees agri-products to remain strong in the agri-based economy of Mindanao this year despite the global crisis.

One Network Bank (ONB) president Alex Buenaventura said the strong agri-based economy and liquid environment support the high deposit generation targets of the bank's branches especially in the countryside.

Given such upbeat outlook, he said they project a 19-percent increase of their targets this year of P288 million as against their actual Net Income After Tax (NIAT) in 2008 of only 242 million.

ONB's deposit liabilities are raised by 30 percent increase or P7.8 billion as against the 2008's actual of P6.0 billion.

He said they also increased their target for loans at 36 percent or about P8.0 billion as against the P5.9 billion actual loans in 2008.

Buenaventura said although there will be many challenges this year, rural banking in Mindanao will continue to experience growth.

He attributed this to the good prospects in agriculture particularly banana, pineapple, coconut, rubber and palm oil.

Buenaventura also said their banking operation remains strong due to Department of Education salary loans and the One Banana Program growers' loans.

Meanwhile, he said the rural banks play a niche in service of small depositors and borrowers in the countryside.

He said as they continue to improve on their services they are also able to bring their clients to economic opportunities in the financial mainstream.

He said they have given small accounts access to projects with solid fundamentals and services which they thought can only be possible in urban centers.

With 72 ONB branches, he said they have given more Mindanaoans the means to improve their lives.

Davao sees more demand for fresh bananas this year

Many investors are looking for farm lands around Mindanao with the increasing demand of fresh bananas especially in Japan.

Gil Dureza, Board of Investment (BOI) head for Regions IX, XI and XII said the demand of foreigners on (Cavendish) bananas is a great advantage to us.

He cited for instance that with the "morning banana diet" that is popular in Japan, there is an indication that demand for the bananas would increase even as he said that many people now are getting conscious of their health and shifted to eating more bananas.

"Investors for banana production continue to come and this has been going on for years now," he said.In fact he said a new investor for banana production is the biggest among this year's investment leads.

The investor would need some 3,400 hectares either in Davao Oriental or Davao del Sur.

Meanwhile Dureza said that In 2007 banana production was also among the registered investments as Upland Banana Corporation opened new areas in Davao, Cotabato and South Cotabato and was able to employ 10,000 workers.

Data from the Department of Agricultre showed that in 2007 the production area was at 436,783 hectares with volume of production of 7,484,074 MT. The Davao Region attained the highest production area and volume of the same year of 78,647 hectares and 3,180,331 MT.

Other top producing regions include SOCCKSARGEN with 935,565 MT, Northern Mindanao 933,114 MT, Cagayan Valley 386,929 MT and the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) 372,676 MT.

On the other hand, banana remained as the leading export commidity where in 2008 it showed an increase of 13.49 percent as against 2007 figure.

The Bureau of Agricultural Statistics comparative data for the last three years from 2006 to 2008 on production volume for the period January to September showed that banana export in 2006 accounted to only 2,197,894 MT, 2007 had 2,377,424 while in 2008 it registered some 2,698,255 MT.