Agriculture Business Week

We often think that being armed is the rebels only way to realize their noble goals, to give their children a promising future and to solve the problems of the country. Well, it could be true for some, but not for two Ilonggo ex-rebels who found peace, happiness and new hope in farming.

They are Tony and Nita Capirayan. They joined the rebel forces because they used to believe that armed struggle is the way to help the country and improve their lives. And like other parents, they also wish to give their kids a future by sending them to school. They, however, realized that they couldn’t make this happen if they would stay in the rebel army.

So they left the army to develop the two-hectare land of Tony’s family in Barangay Tacuyong Sur, Leon, Iloilo into a farm. Starting out was really difficult for them because they didn’t have money. Tony said they worked for their neighbors to earn a capital and they sometimes even asked cassava, banana and other foods from their neighbors because they didn’t have enough money to buy food.

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Posted on February 9th, 2009 under Farming, Fruits. Tags: Banana, Chico, Farming, Fruits, Mango, Pummelo. Comments: None

How do Filipinos love the native Saba banana?

We love it in many ways. As snack food, we have banana-cue or maruya, banana rolls or turon, or just plain boiled banana. We like to have it as minatamis na saging for dessert and pinasugbo, another local delicacy. Famous recipes like pochero, nilagang baka, and bulalo also have banana as one of its ingredients. In summertime, the in demand halo-halo will never be complete without Saba banana. Saba or Cardaba banana is truly a part of our rich culinary culture.

So if you will ask millions of Filipinos overseas how many of them have missed the taste of Saba banana, most probably, you will have a great number of them.

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Posted on December 24th, 2008 under Fruits, Technology. Tags: Banana, Freezing, Technology. Comments: 7

Black Crosses on banana leaves are signs that the crop is suffering, from black cross leaf spot, a fungal disease caused by Phyllarchora musicola which usually attacks cooking-type banana like cardaba or saba.

It causes fast deterioration of leaves, and significant reduction of leaves affects photosynthetic efficiency, leading to reduced fruit yield of up to 50 percent or more. It can also induce premature maturation and ripening, resulting in production of poor quality fruits.

For the past five years, occurrence of black cross leaf spot on cardaba bananas was observed in banana farms in Davao del Norte. And now the prevalence of the disease poses a threat to the province’s banana chips industry at a time when the demand for cardaba, the main material for banana chips production, continues to increase. Thus, black cross leaf spot must be controlled before it affects production. But at present, information about it is very limited.

Because of this, Merlina H. Juruena, a researcher from the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist in Davao del Norte, conducted a study titled “Black Cross Leaf Spot Caused by Cardaba Banana: Stages of Development and Effects of Weather Factors” to establish baseline information on the nature of the disease and the environmental factors affecting it.

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Posted on November 26th, 2008 under Fruits. Tags: Banana, Disease. Comments: 1

The Bagobo-Tagabaw tribe in Barangay Sibulan, Toril District, Davao City has proven that organic farming works and can go large scale with high-end niche market.

Residing near the foot of Mt. Apo, the Philippines’ tallest peak, the tribe grows super sweet organic banana. Hernan Ambe, operations manager of Sibulan Organic Banana Growers Multipurpose Cooperative (SOBAGROMCO), said they are using the Bungulan variety, because it can thrive well under organic environment. The ‘fingers of the fruit grow up to 14 inches in length, longer than the Cavendish variety which is traditionally exported.

Ambe, a Bagobo-Tagabawa native and a barangay councilor, said that the Foundation for Agrarian Reform Cooperatives in Mindanao, Inc. (Farmcoop), a non-government organization established in 1995 to help the government implement the agrarian reform law, was instrumental in engaging his fellow natives to grow organic banana.

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Posted on November 4th, 2008 under Fruits. Tags: Banana, Mindanao. Comments: None

While the country’s agriculture sector is just about to draw up initial steps to combat climate change, another kind of change is emerging and slowly taking its toll on the country’s rice production.

This is crop change or crop shifting wherein farmers abandon rice farming in favor of a more profitable crop particularly banana. Such change in crop production gradually contributes to the declining rice-producing areas in the country particularly in Southern Mindanao.

FROM RICE TO BANANA
Data from the Department of Agriculture (DA) in Region XI revealed that from the 21,393 hectares planted to rice in 2005 in the region, almost one half or 10,047 ha were already converted to banana farms as there is a huge demand for the said crop in the export market. As of 2007, DA said the demand for fresh banana export is around 7.34 million metric tons valued at $475 million.

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Posted on October 14th, 2008 under Fruits, Other Crops, Rice. Tags: Banana, Farming, Mindanao, Rice. Comments: None

Before nematodes or eelworms, which infect the roots of agricultural crops, were controlled by applying synthetic nematicides to the soil. These chemicals, however, are highly toxic, disrupt the natural soil ecosystem, and can cause serious environmental problems.

In the course of finding alternative control measures, a team of Filipino nematologists led by Dr. Romulo G. Davide, then professor of Plant Pathology in the University of the Philippines Los Banos (UPLB), thought testing the capability of the fungus Paecilomyces lilacinus Strain 251 (PL 251) as a biological nematicide.

PL 251, which in 1980 can only be found in the Philippines, is parasitic to all stages of development of common plant-infecting nematodes particularly root knot, potato cyst, and spiral and burrowing nematodes. In their vermiform stages, nematodes are infected as they migrate through the soil. The infection starts when a spore of the fungus adheres to the cuticle and then germinates. The growing fungus then overwhelms the nematode and eats its body.
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Posted on October 10th, 2008 under Fruits, Soil. Tags: Banana, Root, Soil. Comments: None

Solar Drying of Fruits, Vegetables

Another little project that can grow big is solar drying of fruits and vegetables. Two units are now in operation at the research center in Alabel, Sarangani. These are small units that can dry fruits and vegetables in three days. Being dried at present are mango, pineapple, papaya and kamias.

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Posted on August 24th, 2008 under Fruits, Vegetables. Tags: Banana, Veggies. Comments: 5

Success never comes easy to anyone. The elements of success are always there, but one has to work hard to achieve it.

Two banana farmers in Poblacion in Bagumbayan, Sultan Kudarat already did. One of them is 53-year-old Rodolfo Sarmiento of Purok Osmena 1. Nong Rudy, as he is fondly called by his friends, has been farming all his life. And with the two-hectare land he inherited from his parents, there’s no reason why he should astray from farming.

His main dream in life is to live in bounty. But due to lack of knowledge and linkage in crop production, his farming did not offer much potential for growth then.

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Posted on August 11th, 2008 under Fruits. Tags: Banana, Farmers. Comments: 2

One of the most successful fast food chains went a notch higher in their mission to really help the marginalized farmers in the true sense of the word.

Filipinos are by nature fun-loving and generous. This is most exemplified by our Fiesta culture when the entire community works together to make this yearly event a success. This type of community spirit best exemplifies Binalot’s DAHON Program.

Binalot started as a small food delivery service in 1996 and since then, has grown to a full-fledged fast food restaurant. Culled from the Filipino term that means “wrapped,” Binalot serves classic Filipino fiesta foods like inihaw na liempo and dinuguan wrapped in banana leaves just the way they would do it in the provinces. It brings to mind the fiesta atmosphere of fun dining and the great taste of home-cooked or lutong bahay meals. Binalot’s President Rommel Juan said he got the idea for Binalot from the meals his grandmother used to prepare when he was a child.

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Posted on July 30th, 2008 under Fruits, SPOTlight. Tags: Banana, Entrepreneurs. Comments: 4

It would not be a surprise if Basilan would be known as the vegetable bowl of Mindanao as soon as the farmer-cooperators of the Technical Cooperation Project 4 (TCP 4) apply the technologies they have learned in the project’s Farmer’s Field School (FFS).

One of them is Avelino de Guzman of Tabiawan, Isabela City. He is one of the participants in the vegetable production training in Luzon, which the TCP 4 sponsored. Thanks to it, he is able to make money from vegetables, which he raises along with three goats, eight ducks, and chickens in his 1.3-hectare farm.

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Posted on July 13th, 2008 under Special Report. Tags: Banana, Farming, Fertilizer, Manure. Comments: None

A new ornamental banana was displayed for the first time at the recent garden show in Los Banos. This is the Musa exotica ‘R. Valmayor’ named after Dr. Ramon Valmayor, formerly of UP Los Banos and the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain (INIBAP). The new species was collected by Dr. Valmayor and Le Dinh Danh of the Phu Ho Fruit Research Center from the Cuc Phuong Forest in Vietnam in 1994.

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Posted on July 6th, 2008 under Ornamental. Tags: Banana, Ornamental. Comments: None