by Aurelio A. Peña
THE Land Bank of the Philippines (LDP) has approved a P1.2-billion agriculture loan to farmers’ cooperatives under the umbrella of the Federation of Banana Cooperatives of Davao (FEDCO) to start and develop this high-value crop project in the Davao Region.
Rene Dalayon, FEDCO president and chief executive officer, said banana farmers hedging against the growing risks facing the banana industry, are now set to develop a 5,000-hectare palm oil plantation in Sto. Tomas, this province.
“We were given the go-signal by Land Bank to start the ball rolling for this palm oil project immediately,” said Dalayon who gathered FEDCO board officers and top coop officials for a meeting the other day with Land Bank officials in Asuncion, Sto. Tomas.
The P1.2-billion Land Bank loan for the Davao farmers participating in the palm oil project is broken down into P630 million for land development and seedlings and P580 million for a processing plant, he said.
“We’re now ready to do this project. We’ll start initially by producing crude palm oil to supply oil refinery plants in Manila. Later, when we have more areas and processing plants, we’ll put up our own refinery,” Dalayon said.
Meanwhile, Gov. Rodolfo del Rosario has mobilized various government agencies and banks in the province to set in motion the development plans for a huge palm oil industry in the region to protect Davao banana farmers from continuing threats and dangers facing the banana industry.
Spearheading the development of a huge palm oil industry in Davao del Norte that will benefit farmers who are agrarian reform beneficiaries, del Rosario agreed with Dalayon that the entire province can develop 60,000 to 80,000 hectares for palm oil plantations generating annual revenues of P26 billion for the farmers.
It takes at least 26 months from planting to harvesting oil palms before a farmer can start harvesting the nuts every two weeks for processing the crude oil for shipments, according to Dalayon.
He said this big palm oil project is the second hedging move FEDCO is taking, after they set up a successful cacao nursery for farmers’ cooperatives in the province.
“We’re not replacing our main venture of producing high quality bananas for the export market. We’re diversifying to these two high value crops to protect our fellow banana farmers from the growing threats facing this industry,” Dalayon said. [PNA)
