Sweet And Chemical-Free, Sibulan Bananas Is Now Talk Of The Town

DAVAO CITY (Roger Balanza / 05 Oct) - A farmer’s cooperative in the hinterland village of Sibulan is fast becoming the talk of the town because not only its people are hardworking and friendly, but they also grow exportable sweet bananas that are 100 percent chemical-free.

The Sibulan Organization of Banana Growers Multi-Purpose Cooperative (SOBGROMCO) may only be a small player in the banana industry but it is slowly carving a niche in the large Japanese market for organic bananas.

Although covering only about 60 hectares, the SOBGROMCO highland bananas are in-demand in Japan which is its main market where the bananas fetch a dollar more than the non-organic Cavendish.

Aromatic, tastier and with a longer shelf life, the SOBGROMCO bananas of the pest-resistant Bongolan variety is endemic to the cool Upper Toril hinterlands, like Sibulan village, which is about 650 meters above sea level.

The farm, which lies inside the village’s thick forests, has been strongly endorsed by the different tribal councils in Toril district here and Davao del Sur province as a model farm for local natives. The cooperative farm straddles the boundary of Davao City and Davao del Sur. Its farm-hands are from the Tagabawa-Bagobo tribe, which accounts for 95 percent of the Sibulan population.

Mindanao’s exotic fruits could grab a bigger share of the current world demand for organic fruits, said the USAID–assisted Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM).

GEM fruit specialist Celso Enriquez said chemical-free fruits like mango, banana and papaya command a higher price and are most sought by countries preferring organic fruits. The leading exporter of organic bananas from Mindanao is the Ayala-owned TriStar Group of Banana Companies in Davao City which exports its bananas to Japan.

Firms like those run by the TriStar Group of Banana Companies, the flagship company of businessman Jesus V. Ayala, grows organic upland Cavendish bananas without the deadly chemical fertilizers and pesticides that fuel other banana companies to put profit over environmental concerns.

Environmentalist groups here have been locked in a protracted battle with banana companies over threats to the watershed areas. In Tamayong, Calinan, Pastor Apollo Quibuloy is leading his flock in the “Kingdom of Jesus Christ the Name Above Every Name” in sending protest letters to the Davao City Council, for a stop to aerial spraying.

In several villages in the watershed areas, residents complain of respiratory diseases as plantations gobble up buffer zones to plant bananas a foot away from houses and intrude into critical slopes. But the debate boils down heavily on the most serious threat to the environment: massive use of pesticides and other deadly chemicals to control plant pests and diseases.

Mike Ayala, who has taken over the TriStar as its new chairman, said the firm experience has shown large-scale agricultural plantations can grow in environmentally-sensitive areas with corporate responsibility balancing profit and nature on an even keel. Tristar grows its top-grade bananas with 85 percent organic fertilizer.

Pest and weed control make use of company-devised secrets from a decade old study that showed pro-nature farm practices are as effective as using deadly chemicals. Although the company subscribes to medically confirmed studies that fungicide that controls banana leaf diseases is harmless, it has abandoned aerial spraying and adopted ground-based mechanical spray applications–all for the sake of calming down public fears.

Ayala and William Leh, Tristar president and chief executive officer, recently local government officials headed by City Administrator Wendell Avisado and Councilors Arnolfo Ricardo Cabling, Conrado Baluran and Gerald Bangoy in a tour of the TriStar farm in Tagakpan, Sirib, Subasta and Manuel Guianga in Calinan.

Amid fears of threat to the environment, the tour afforded Cabling, chair of the environmental committee, Baluran of Agriculture and Bangoy of Health, the other side of the coin: Tristar could be the model farm that would calm down public apprehension agricultural intrusion in the watershed areas could damage their water sources.

Ayala said that Tristar miracle was not achieved overnight but went through more than a decade of a painfully slow trial-and-error routine anchored on the company mission that profit could be gained without jeopardizing the environment. The Ayalas are not new in the industry.

The JVA Group of Companies, Tristar’s predecessor, is among the trailblazers of the lowland banana industry that placed Davao region in the world of sweet bananas. Tristar is among several companies which has locations in Calinan and other upland districts, as demand for sweet upland Cavendish bananas soars. I

ndustry figures show that about 16,000 hectares in Davao City have been planted to bananas with AMS accounting for 2,600; Stanfilco, 656; Lapanday, 1100 and Tristar, 656.

Despite being a minor player in the industry, Leh said Tristar has dominated the local organic banana export to Japan where its bananas have a special niche in the current vogue for naturally-grown fruits. Organic bananas are more expensive in Japan, where Tristar exports all its products.

Leh said Tristar has placed Davao City bananas in the highest level of the organic fruits category –and the company is responding with equal intensity to the trust given by the Japanese market.

He explained that in Japan, distributors in the organic product markets adopt what is called as the “rule of traceability,” where sellers certify their products but place the burden on the suppliers if end-users raise complaints.

Tristar uses only organic fertilizer that the company itself produces, that mealy bug infestation can be minimized with use of harmful detergent, that scaring beetles can be lured away from the banana fruits with an innocent plant and that corn borers are as happy if given an alternate feeding ground without attacking the banana plants.

The biggest argument Tristar could be a model farm in the watershed area lies on a creature that you could not find in other banana farms: frogs One of the most sensitive denizens of this earth, frogs croaked, leaped and danced all over the farm under the shades of the banana leaves. (Mindanao Insider)