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Wednesday, April 27, 2005
RP is top banana grower, exporter
THE Philippines is leading banana grower and exporter in Asia and is currently ranked third in the world market.
Globally, Ecuador remains the largest banana exporter followed by Costa Rica while the Philippines competes with Columbia for the number three position.
Of the three geographical areas in the country, Mindanao remains to be the premiere producer of bananas with 182,484 hectares and production volume has reached to 3,681,253 tons.
However, due to limited access to information and technology, banana farmers were meagerly progressive resulting to low productivity and high post harvest losses, said Rolando Denila, chair of the Banana Industry Council of Southern Mindanao (BicsMin), during the recently concluded National Banana Marketing conference held at Grand Men Seng Hotel.
With the factors that limit the capability and capacity of small farmers, government intervention is needed to provide the best aid over the situation for the future of the banana industry.
These should include: expansion and rehabilitation of banana farms; extension services; development of irrigation and drainage facilities; market matching; and research and development.
Denila said there are marketing challenges that also inflict the native banana industry which have become pressing concerns in modern times particularly on the supply, quality, distribution network, transport and shipping facilities and productivity.
The Bicsmin, with the support of the Department of Agriculture, conducted the national banana marketing conference.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (April 27, 2005 issue)
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