Why the banana industry is growing weaker

The banana industry, once a the leading driver of the country’s export sector, continued to weaken due to unreliable government policies that disregard established practices and contracts, extreme weather phenomena and the continuing attacks and extortion activities of communist insurgents in Mindanao, according to industry stakeholders.

Despite a much-publicized interim ceasefire forged between the government and communist insurgents in the Netherlands, the atrocities committed by New People’s Army (NPA) rebels against banana and other fruit plantations in Mindanao continue to hound the industry, they said.