Banana tops fruit production volume in South Cotabato, Philippines

Among the fruit bearing trees in South Cotabato, banana has emerged as the crop with the highest volume of harvest, producing an annual average of 55,530 metric tons, or 55,530,000 kilos, in the past two years, data from the provincial agriculture’s office showed.
 
Reynaldo Legaste, South Cotabato chief agriculture officer, said banana got a major boost in T’boli town, where 2,012 hectares of land have been planted to banana, producing an annual 27,894 MT since 2003.
 
In the entire province as of late 2004, a total of 5,173 hectares have been planted to banana. Legaste said this explains why production was considerably high.
 
“More farmers are cultivating banana due to the demand in the market,” he said.
 
Legaste said the Davao City-based Philippine Fruits International Corp (PFIC) has a huge demand for its dried food products that are exported to the United States, European Union and parts of Asia.
 
PFIC has been buying banana and other fruit products from Mindanao since last year for processing by its Cebu City-based sister company, ProFood International Corp. ProFood exports “Trail Mix” which has found its way in the shelves of the WalMart chain of stores.
 
Agnes Luz, export market development officer of the Growth with Equity in Mindanao, said PFIC needs an open volume of cavendish banana as ingredient for “Trail Mix.”
 
“Trail Mix,” a combination of dried papaya, mango, nut, banana chips, coconut flakes, and pineapple, has been doing good in Asia such that exclusive distributorship by companies in Korea and Singapore was forged with ProFood, Luz added.
 
Next to banana, Legaste said mango production in the province has improved, with a production of 8,336 MT, or 8,366,000 kilos a year since 2003.
 
Polomolok town, where Dole Philippines maintains thousands of hectares of pineapple plantation, is the top mango-producing area in South Cotabato, contributing 2,843 tons yearly.
 
Other fruit-bearing trees mainly grown in the province are lanzones (third in production ranking) with 2,909 MT yearly; durian with 1,399 MT yearly; rambutan with 557 MT yearly; and pomelo with 39 MT yearly.
 
Legaste warned last week that fruit bearing trees are in danger of withering and eventually dying, if there would be no rains in the area within one month.
 
Agriculture officials headed by Legaste are inspecting starting today (Monday) the localities to assess the impact of the mild El Niño phenomenon being felt in the province through the intense heat and lack of rainfall since last month.

Legaste said they have not induced rains through cloudseeding last week since mangoes in the area were in their flowering stage but that they hope to have artificial rains in two weeks time to avert the dry spell’s impact on agricultural crops.

In a company briefer, Jean Young, PFIC general manager, said they need a daily supply of at least 200 tons of fresh mango this year.
 
Fruit supplies sourced from Mindanao, she said, “are not enough to meet the demands of customers abroad.”

Young said they have buying stations for banana, mango and other fruit products in various parts of Mindanao.

For Southeastern and Southwestern Mindanao, the buying stations are in the cities of Panabo, Tagum, Digos, Koronadal, General Santos and Cotabato City, Tupi in South Cotabato and Midsayap in North Cotabato.
 
For Northern and Northeastern Mindanao, the company’s buying stations are in the cities of Cagayan de Oro, Butuan, Ozamiz, Iligan, Dipolog, Zamboanga and several other areas in the provinces of Bukidnon, Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte.