Fruit farmers in Davao City are encouraged to plant avocado for export to Singapore, a country that has been buying other exportable fruits produced by Dabawenyos.
Arturo M. Milan, president of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that for years now, Singaporeans have been buying bananas and durian produced in Davao City and neighborning areas.
Milan told reporters some Singaporean fruit retailers have approached members of a recent trade mission from Davao to discuss the possibility of sourcing their fruits from Mindanao.
Right now, Singaporeans buy their fruits from countries very far from Singapore, prompting Singaporean retailers prompting them to price their imported fruits very high, the business leader said.
Aside from Cavendish and other exportable banana varieties, Singaporeans started buying fresh durians from Davao five years ago, and the demand for the fruit has been in the Singapore market which sources durian from Thailand and Indonesia, has been growing.
Candelario B. Miculob of the Davao City Durian Industry Council said that local durian producers have now a problem of satisfying the ballooning demand of the Singaporean market.
Miculob said a buyer from China has also expressed interest in durian but from local producers has shelved the request because they could not supply the demand.
Owner of a 12-hectare durian farm in Calinan, Miculob started exporting to Singapore in 2013 with about 500 kilograms.
Aside from very stringent phytosanitary requirement, one challenge he has to meet, said MMiculob, is that his fruits would reach the destination when they were overripe.
He said it is hard to determine the time when the fruit becomes ripe as the Singaporeans do not want their fruit vacuum sealed.
