Davao del Norte – Governor Rodolfo P. del Rosario has directed the Provincial Cooperative Development Council (PCDC) to extend whatever assistance it can give to the small Cavendish banana growers who suffered from the recent trade row with China.
“Let us find whatever way we can to help them,” the governor told the members of the PCDC of Davao del Norte at their quarterly meeting on June 7, 2012.
The small growers in the region were chiefly affected when China refused the entry of Philippine banana exports following the tightening of their quarantine regulations last May.
The big banana export companies did not have any problems with the standoff since they have always complied with strict standards.
Although the Chinese government has already lifted the ban and started to accept banana exports from the Philippines, many small growers still find it hard to gain entry again to the China market as they lack the needed quality control mechanisms.
But del Rosario said, the small growers, who used to ship at least 45 million boxes worth about P7 billion to China annually, only have themselves to blame for their ordeal.
“These problems could have been avoided had the growers toed the line,” he said.
He is also saddened when some of them reneged from their grower and marketing agreements with multi-national exporters of Cavendish bananas, by selling their bananas to third-party buyers offering higher prices in clandestine operations called ‘pole-vaulting’.
He revealed the pole-vaulters no longer get the technical support and inputs that their partner exporters were providing them, and that the latter also no longer buy their harvests, which resulted to the spoiling of thousands of boxes of their bananas.
Worst, many of these growers can no longer apply for additional loans in order to rehabilitate their farms, as they still have outstanding bad loans with financing institutions.
The governor required the erring banana growers to embrace the ideals expressed in the cooperative pledge, particularly on unity and cooperation.
