Thursday, October 16, 2008 Cardava banana to be RP's next gold mine
THE owner of the sole company in Mindanao, which is into the production of frozen ripe cardava banana, claimed that the potential of Philippine cardava banana in the world market is very huge, saying it is going to be the country's next gold mine.
Ferdinand Marañon, owner of the Sagrex Foods Inc., an exporter of frozen ripe cardava banana, frozen banana fries, and turon (ripe banana glazed with sugar), said during Wednesday's edition of the Club 888 at the Marco Polo Davao that their company is advocating to farmers to plant cardava banana to idle lands.
"We don't want rice or corn farmers to shift to banana planting, instead, we encourage them to plant cardava banana on idle lands, which are not being utilized," Marañon told Sun.Star Davao.
He added that during the State of the Nation Address (Sona) of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in July this year, the latter said that Mindanao, though considered as the food basket of the country, still has some of the highest hunger cases.
"The solution may just be staring at us under our very own noses. It is just there at the backyard looking at our eyes. A possible way out of this dilemma is the lowly, neglected cardava banana, the lowly poor man's diet just might be the next gold mine," he said.
Marañon also asserted that should a person plants 300 banana trees, his family will never be hungry anymore.
Meanwhile, Marañon, who is engaged in exporting ripe frozen cardava, told Sun.Star that their product may be preserved up to two years.
"The problem of store owners abroad who sell fresh banana is that some of them only throw the products because the shelf life of fresh banana is very low, nahihinog at nalalata. We made a study and developed the frozen banana products. The products have no preservatives," he said.
He said that at present, Sagrex is still at the introductory stage of exporting these frozen products to some parts of the world such as Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United States of America, and Korea.
He said the production level of the company today is 500 kilos per hour. It targets to produce 3,000 kilos per hour in five years time.
Undersecretary Merly Cruz of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)-Southern Mindanao meantime said that banana, being the region's enrolled commodity under One Town One Product (Otop) Program, keeps on soaring high as manifested by this development.
Otop is a priority program of the government that aims to promote entrepreneurship and create jobs.
Based on the report of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and DTI-Nerbac Davao, the region already recorded a total export value of US$320.38 million for fresh and processed banana during the first semester of 2007. (JGRS)
