Better times await banana industry

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna — Better times now await the country’s banana industry.

Basis of this optimistic projection is the recent turnover of new improved banana varieties to the government by a Rome, Italy-based international institute.

Samples of 16 varieties of high-yielding and pest-resistant bananas were presented to Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Q. Montemayor by Director General Geoffrey Hawtin of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) during the annual general meeting of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) held in the Philippines from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1.

Washington, DC, USA-based CGIAR is a strategic alliance of 16 international agricultural research centers (including IPGRI) formally called Future Harvest Centers (FHC), 62 members (including 24 developing and 22 industrialized countries), investors and hundreds of partner-organizations that mobilize science to benefit poor people across the world.

Held at UP Los Baños (venue of the first two days of the five-day CGIAR meeting), the turnover of the new banana varieties was witnessed by Director Eliseo R. Ponce of the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Agricultural Research (DA-BAR), Director Emile Frison of the IPGRI-International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain (INIBAP), UPLB chancellor Wilfredo David and Dr. William D. Dar, former DA Acting Secretary and now director general of the India-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), also a CGIAR center.

Dr. Agustin B. Molina, INIBAP regional coordinator for Asia and the Pacific regional office based at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), another CGIAR center, said that although the new varieties were bred in breeding programs in other countries, these may have great potential of growing under Philippine conditions.

Moreover, these may be accepted by local consumers as the parents of these varieties actually came from Asia, including the Philippines.

"Breeding banana through conventional methods is extremely difficult and expensive compared to rice and corn as bananas seldom produce seeds. Availing ourselves of products of breeding programs coordinated by INIBAP is a tremendous benefit for our country," said Dr. Molina.

He said the improved varieties include dessert-type similar to the Philippine "lakatan" but higher-yielding and more resistant to disease.

Some of the varieties are also of the cooking type, similar the native "saba". One of these varieties, named FHIA 21, is a cooking type which is excellent for making banana chips, as it has long rounded fruits, the plant is shorter than "saba," harvested four months earlier, and resistant to pests and diseases.

Dr. Molina reported that these varieties are now available at the UPLB Institute of Plant Breeding (IPB) and at the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) in Davao City. These institutes were identified as National Repository Multiplication Centers.

He said the acquisition of the new varieties comes at an opportune time considering that thousands of small-scale banana farmers throughout the country are suffering from the onslaught of new and virulent pathogens.

Example is the devastation of the "lakatan" variety owing to a virus disease called banana bunchy top (BBT) which renders the plants stunted, turn yellow, and die.

Big plantations in Mindanao which have the economic and technical ability to control the disease are now the ones supplying the "lakatan" needs of Luzon, replacing an important source of food and income of hundreds of thousands of small-scale growers in the country.

According to Dr. Molina, the new varieties provided by INIBAP have been tested in many locations around the world, including BPI in Davao, and have proved to be resistant to diseases, are high-yielding and easy to grow.

"They are already being adopted with alacrity by poor farmers throughout Africa and Latin America, and the benefits are impressive," he said.

Dr. Molina concluded: "It is the smallholder farmers who suffer most when pests and diseases attack. Unlike the large-scale commercial growers, they are unable to afford the expensive chemicals that can be used to control the pests. It is the goal of this effort of INIBAP that these new varieties will be rapidly disseminated and will bring relief to those who need them most."