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By Ira Karen Apanay, Senior Reporter
AGRICULTURE Secretary Arthur Yap on Monday said
the US Department of Agriculture has assured the Philippines of the
speedy processing of the pest risk analysis for local bananas.
Once approved, the US will allow the entry of
banana, a high-value commodity into the American market and will
boost the country’s export earnings by $6 million yearly.
“The Philippines is a leader in banana
production and creating a new market would aid the livelihood of
farmers in Mindanao where much of the exports are sourced,” Yap
said.
He added that opening Philippine bananas to an
important market such as the US will send a positive signal to small
Filipino farmers to diversify into high-value crop production.
In his bilateral meeting with Acting Secretary
Chuck Conner of the USDA in Washington on November, Yap had
identified bananas to the American official as the Philippine
commodity that should be given priority by the US officials in
conducting its pest-risk analysis on potential products for imports.
Yap said Conner then assured him that the USDA
would move to expeditiously conduct the pest risk analysis for
Philippine bananas.
The description of the US Food Safety System
explains that “science and risk analysis are fundamental to US
food safety policymaking. In recent years, the federal government
has focused more intently on risks associated with microbial
pathogens and on reducing those risks through a comprehensive,
farm-to-table approach to food safety. This policy emphasis was
based on the conclusion that the risks associated with microbial
pathogens are unacceptable and, to a large extent, avoidable; and
that multiple interventions would be required throughout the
farm-to-table chain to make real progress in reducing food-borne
pathogens and the incidence of food-borne disease.”
Ecuador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Colombia are
the top sources of bananas for Americans.
Private sector players in the local banana
industry have earlier sent a request to the Department of
Agriculture, through the Bureau of Plant Industry, to initiate the
process of penetrating the lucrative US market to further raise
earnings from this high-value commodity. Philippine bananas are
exported to Japan, Iran and Korea.
The Agriculture department is targeting export
earnings totaling $475 million and the creation of over 35,000 new
jobs from its ongoing program to beef up the production and sales of
bananas this year.
Yap said the department is opening up more
markets for bananas and other high-value commercial crops, which
contribute significantly to the country’s agro-fishery export
earnings, through selling and trade missions in major markets like
China and Japan and emerging markets in Europe and Asia.
Yap said the department aims to raise banana
exports by 7.9 percent for 2007, which would translate into $475
million in export earnings in 2007.
The Department of Agriculture expects banana
production, which reached 6.801 million metric tons last year, to
increase by 543,420 metric tons in 2007 to 7.345 million metric
tons—a 7.88-percent increase.
The increase is credited to the expansion in
2006 of lands planted to banana totaling 35,294 hectares, mostly in
the Zamboanga peninsula, Northern Mindanao, the Davao region and
Central Mindanao.
The Agriculture department is targeting an
expansion of 35,005 hectares of land planted to banana in Davao, Northern
Mindanao and the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).
The expected production increases are: 25,616
metric tons in CAR; 368,361 metric tons in Cagayan Valley; 116,072
metric tons in CALABARZON (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and
Quezon provinces); 338,088 metric tons in Western Visayas; 171,455
metric tons in Central Visayas; 246,063 metric tons in Eastern
Visayas; 247,201 metric tons in the Zamboanga peninsula; 714,732
metric tons in Northern Mindanao; 3.249 million metric tons in Davao;
913,904 metric tons in Central Mindanao; 229,952 metric tons in
CARAGA; and 390,594 metric tons in Autonomous Region in Muslim
Mindanao.
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