Some 114 banana growers in Mabini, Compostela Valley rejected the 20-year Exclusive Option to Purchase Bananas Agreement (EOPBA) they entered in 2009 with a firm identified with multinational Unifrutti company.
The banana growers are Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs) who are members of Mampising Farmers Marketing Cooperative (MFMC), each of whom was awarded 2.8 hectares of land and whose aggregate area comprised 252 hectares inside the former 707-hectare banana plantation of Lapanday firm in sitio Mampising, Barangay Tagnanan, Mabini, Compostela Valley.
MFMC president Victoriano Aliniabon said they have been suffering economic hardships for so many years now by the low buying price of their banana produce set at 3.20 dollars only per box under the agreement.
He claimed that from his awarded land, he produced an average 200 boxes, giving him a gross PHp60,000 or PHp70,000 in 15 days’ billing but “the company only gave me PHp2,500 or PHp3,500 net earnings.”
He added he did not know how he ended this up with all the many deductions made against his gross earnings like 32 dollar cents for the infrastructure, the PHp4,000 every two weeks for the segatoka pest control, expenses for aerial spray and others while they shouldered the costs for fertilizers, labor and others.
MFMC board member Paulina Lusanez said if they would be out of “Unifrutti’s control, we could earn so much, times 2 or times 3 of our gross.”
“It’s possible each of us once freed can earn PHp40,000 a month more than my present PHp3,000 net,” she added.
MFMC members’ banana production from the aggregate 252 hectares is estimated to reach at least 5,000 boxes per day.
During the hearing Thursday by Provincial Adjudicator Noel Condez of Compostela Valley’s Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board (DARAB), the 114 individual banana growers said “no” when asked individually if they wanted that their cavendish banana produce would still be solely bought by the Unifrutti Growers Service, Inc. (UGSI).
The hearing was held following an order from the Supreme Court for DARAB to conduct fact-finding hearing to settle the six-year-old case once and for all.
Some 160 ARBs under their mother coop, Mampising Carp Beneficiaries Cooperative (MCBC) raised their case with DARAB starting in 2010 to Court of Appeals to Supreme Court questioning the EOPBA and the attached memorandum of agreement of it.
The growers said they can stand on their own without Unifrutti.
MFMC consultant Arnold Gomez said that the MFMC ARB-members are “just consistent” in not wanting any compromise agreement with Unifrutti.
There was no representative from Unifrutti who attended the hearing even if it was the one who set the date of the hearing to put finality of the case already resolved and remanded by the Supreme Court for DAR to resolve it.
Gomez said he and MFMC members are confident on PARAD Condez ruling that would “finally set free the Mampising ARBs for their economic prosperity.”
He said that the MFMC is not fighting but making peace with the other ARB group, the Mampising United Farmers Multipurpose Cooperative (MUFMPC), which is the new though smaller MBC, whose members would also benefit from the favorable DARAB ruling. (PNA)
