Arakan, North Cotabato women wash Cavendish bananas ready for export as this mountainous town has become a center for agribusiness in Central Mindanao area. PHOTO BY PINOY GONZALES/PDI CONTRIBUTOR
DAVAO CITY – Banana growers in Mindanao continue to suffer loses as their market shrunk, an industry official said.
Still reeling from the effects of China’s stringent quarantine policy, which led to the rotting of thousands of boxes of Cavendish bananas in Chinese ports this year, banana growers are now feeling the heat of the crisis that has been sweeping the Eurozone, Rene Dalayon, president of the Mindanao Banana Farmers and Exporters Association (Mbfea) told reporters here Monday.
Mindanao banana growers and exporters continue to incur losses of up to P120 million per week due to the problem with China’s quarantine policy and declining exports to other markets, Dalayon said.
China has been turning away banana shipments from the Philippines that had failed its quarantine procedures.
Dalayon said European buyers—due to the crisis they were experiencing—asked for lower banana prices.
Currently a box of Cavendish sells for $2 each.
But Dalayon said the 20-30 percent discount that European buyers want would lead to losses among producers as the price would become lower than what they actually spend in production.
With the shrinking market, Dalayon said many banana farmers had stopped producing and chopped down their trees in favor of other crops.
Dalayon said for other banana farmers, who did not totally chop down their plants, setting aside small areas for cacao and coconuts has become a norm.
He could not say how many hectares had been stripped of bananas but Mindanao has about 80,000 hectares planted to bananas before the producers’ woes started.
“We are really affected. In fact, I went to the fiesta in Kapalong (Davao del Norte) and there were only a few people. Usually during fiesta, the road is full of people celebrating the fiesta,” he said.
Melanie Provido, in-charge of high value crops at the Department of Agriculture (DA) Southern Mindanao office, said despite the claims of the producers, the government remains bullish about the potentials of the banana industry that it even allotted P100 million for the upgrading of packing houses for 14 cooperatives in the region.
“Despite some problems, we are helping farmers to expand the area. We are addressing the problems such as raising the quality control for bananas,” Provida said.
Other alternatives to help banana growers cope up with losses are the upcoming signing of an agreement with the Department of Education (DepEd) for the supply of bananas to public schools under the government’s national feeding program, she said.
The program targets about 21 million pupils in the country. This would mean about 240 million boxes of bananas in a year for the feeding program, Provido said.