by Aurelio Pena
THERE’S so much frustration among banana farmers in the Davao region, I won’t be surprised if many of them are switching back to rice, corn, coconuts, mango, etc. which they produced long before multinationals enticed them to plant cavendish bananas.
Painful economic issues like the millions in costly unpaid loans, low-buying price, as well as environmental issues like aerial spraying—are all heavy burdens these farmers can no longer carry for long on their fragile shoulders.
So, if hundreds of banana farmers under the umbrella of the Federation of Farmers Cooperative (FEDCO) are poised to chop down all banana plants on thousands of hectares of banana plantation in southern Mindanao to start planting cacao (yes, cacao!), all I can say is that they really have no better choice. Kapit sa patalim, mga pare ko!
If you’re a banana farmer trying to produce export quality bananas and people all around you are pestering you, castigating you, persecuting you for aerial spraying — and running after you for unpaid loans you can’t pay because of the fruit’s low-buying price, you really have no other choice.
Rene Dalayon, FEDCO president, told me that he’s now laying the groundwork for the massive planting of palm oil trees in Davao del Norte while many of his coop members, all banana farmers, are set to go into massive cacao planting and production.
“Many of us will be switching to palm oil and cacao soon to take advantage of growing world demand and rising prices,” Dalayon said during a meeting with a banana industry cluster group recently.
Most of Davao-based banana growers and exporters have been expanding their areas of production in Bukidon, Cotabato, Agusan and other provinces that are “friendlier” to them. Some of them are also expanding in other friendly countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Cambodia and Bangladesh.
These “forced evacuation” of banana companies to other countries due to environmental, political and economic issues, now make Davao look “unfriendly” to foreign investors. It’s an impression you can’t shake away with glowing press releases or media press conferences.
Although Dalayon and his FEDCO banana farmers are able to avoid aerial spraying with the more tedious “manual spraying” (which is 100% riskier than aerial spraying), the heaviest burden they can’t carry are the millions of pesos in bank debts. “You cannot survive in the banana business carrying a 20% interest loan and very low buying prices for bananas by multinationals,” Dalayon told this writer.
Dalayon, an “Entrepreneur of the Year” awardee who was recently featured on ANC and Business World, was instrumental in getting direct Japanese buyers for hundreds of banana farmers in Davao del Norte who formed themselves into a group called Sto. Tomas Banana Industry Cluster Association or STOBICA.
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