Hopes are high for the Banana Industry Roadmap to be on the pipeline soon.
With several of the government’s economic planners and budget officials, not to mention the President himself, coming from Mindanao, the Philippine Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) has all the reasons to be optimistic.
“It seems that most of powers are now from Mindanao, we are really hopeful that the roadmap will eventually take off from the ground, not so much for the big players but also for the small and medium size banana growers who are the ones who really need help,” PBGEA Executive Director Stephen Antig told media in Wednesdays Habi at Kape.
Completed in 2018 and signed by then Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Pinol, the Banana Industry Development Roadmap 2018-2020 aims to address concerns of the banana growers nationwide.
“Unfortunately medyo nahuli na when it comes to budgeting. Chances are kung magkaroon man ng funding it would be next year,” Antig said.
Antig clarified that the roadmap does not focus solely on cavendish bananas. It covers all banana varieties grown in the country.
He also said that on August 22, the association will be meeting with the new Agriculture Secretary William Dar and they intend to lay down their concerns and priorities particularly the funding of the roadmap before him.
Antig also mentioned that another priority is the establishment of the banana research institute or facility.
He cited that the Philippines is lagging behind its competitors in the banana export market.
For one, Antig said other countries have better laboratory facilities which is vital in research and technology.
Antig cited Taiwan which is a very small country but with one of the best research laboratories in terms of production of different varieties of bananas. He also said other than Taiwan, Japan has a very good laboratory.
“Medyo kulelat tayo sad to say the existing research facility of the government does not have a re-agent. A month ago several buyers from all over the world were asking me for a supply of saba cardava. But there is shortage of saba cardava and one of the reasons identified, there is no laboratory that produces tissue culture for saba and cardava,” he said.
He also gave update on the situation of the Philippine banana industry. For 2019, only China accelerated in the period from January to June. The rest have shrunk.
Shipment to China by PBGEA members increased by something 70.4% while all the other markets have shrunk.
“But overall the total export from our members reduced by 8% that is from January to June 2018 compared to 2019,” he said.
Antig said it is strategic to focus on China where bananas now rank 4th as far as the Philippine export value is concerned. This is based on the data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) as of July 2019. For 2018, the export value of bananas to China is about US $497 million.
Antig shared that as far as the national figures are concerned from January to June periods in 2018 and 2019, fresh bananas are now ranked 5th outranking coconut oil which dropped to 9th with a total value of US$984 million or an increase of about 57.5% in terms of value of the same period in 2019.
“It’s really a huge jump and you can see these figures alone that China is really the market to watch out for. In the last International Banana Congress that I attended May of this year, all the producing countries were also saying that they are looking into China as the major market of the future,” he said.
Presently, Philippines is still Asia’s top banana exporter. However, Antig said banana growers have to watch their turf because Southeast Asian neighbors are fast catching up.
“In fact what is alarming is that they have been pirating a lot of our technical people offering three to four times what they are getting. It’s possible that we will be facing brain drain in the Philippine banana industry as what they say money is really the best motivating factor,” he said.
He said to be able to sustain the banana industry, all banana stakeholders have to get their acts together, not only the private sector but the government as well.
