Panama disease shuts down part of Davao banana farm

Davao City — The operation of some 40 hectares of cavendish banana farms in Monkayo, Compostela Valley Province of the Dizon Farms Inc. will be shut down as the area has been infected with Fusarium Wilt, or the Panama disease.

Dizon Farms board secretary Madeline Marfori, who is also president of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association Inc. (PBGEA), said in an interview that it was already expensive for the company to continuously treat the area as cost of quarantine initially sum up to P3 million.

“Why will we put this big amount of money to continuously quarantine the area and at the same time operate the farm? We might as well close this area,” she said.

But she said they cannot immediately implement the closure because they had to consider the livelihood of 40 workers in that area.

She said the entry of the disease really threatened the industry, saying that corporate farms or plantation farms find it expensive to treat their areas, how much more for the small banana farm growers.

She said without any concrete intervention, the industry would suffer tremendously.

“The corporate farms have their respective Research and Development arm but nobody takes care of the small farm growers,” she said.

She said without the proper intervention such as sanitation, the spread of the disease would be massive. Current figures indicated that total number of hectares affected by the diseases already reached 1,200.

“In our respective corporate social responsibility programs we do assist small farms adjacent to our plantations but this is just small compared to the bigger number that hardly gets support,” she said.

During their talk with Vice President Jejomar Binay last Saturday, banana growers asked for government’s immediate intervention even as Marfori reiterated for the establishment of a Banana Research Institute that will handle the needs of the industry.

She said the intervention must be immediate since the diseases spreads fast, especially during rainy season.

Binay,who was in Davao City last Saturday as guest of PBGEA’s Induction Ceremony, said he would bring their concerns to the proper channels in Manila.

He even assured members of the PBGEA of the Aquino administration’s support in developing and maintaining a globally competitive banana export industry as he promised to relay to President Aquino the various concerns and issues that PBGEA discussed with him.

The Vice President is supportive in the putting up of Banana Research Institute for Mindanao.

Meanwhile, Marfori said they needed the help of the local government units and the Department of Agriculture (DA) in educating the small farm growers in implementing control measures to prevent the spread of the disease.

“The LGUs (local government units) have the authority and the power to do so especially that proper sanitation could help control the spread of the disease,” she said.

Marfori admitted a decline in their production also because of the climate change.

She said too much rain affects the growth of the plants and would produce undersized fruits. Based on forecast more rains are coming in the next few months and this will affect production.

The Dizon Farms has a total aggregate area of 700 hectares planted with cavendish banana located in Nabunturan, Monkayo, Compostela and New Bataan in Compostela Valley Province and in Cateel, Davao Oriental.

Mindanao has a total area planted to cavendish banana of 80,000 hectares, 60 percent of this are corporate farms while 40 percent are small banana farm growers. PNA