MinDA throws in support to banana council

Sec. Luwalhati Antonino,

Mindanao Development

Authority

DAVAO CITY - Stressing the importance of convergence to effectively address challenges facing the banana industry in Mindanao, Sec. Luwalhati Antonino declared strong support to the formation of the first ever Banana Development Council in the island-region.

“In the same way that we created the country’s first river basin councils in Mindanao to integrate all watershed and river basin management, so should you create a similar council for the banana industry,” the chair of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) said in her message Thursday to the 500-strong delegation to the Mindanao Banana Congress.

Speaking as guest of honor to the first Mindanao-wide banana congress spearheaded by the Philippine Exporters Confederation recently, Antonino exhorted both big banana corporations and smallholder farmers to strengthen alliances among their ranks and bolster coordination with government agencies to collectively resolve industry issues.

Mindanao’s banana industry has been beset with problems such as the outbreak of the Fusarium wilt disease, the reduction of Philippine banana exports to China caused by pest infestation issues, and the consequent glut in Mindanao that forced the industry to seek new markets.

Resource speakers from concerned government agencies presented way forward actions and recommendations in direct response to the clamor of industry players for government support and intervention.

“Now is the time for all of us to work together to make these recommendations a reality,” said Antonino, adding that convergence of private and government efforts have proven to yield positive results as evidenced by successful advocacies MinDA has undertaken in partnership with Mindanao stakeholders.

Antonino was referring to MinDA’s continuing advocacy, undertaken with multi-sectoral support and participation, for Mindanao to get its fair share from the national budget.

This led to Mindanao getting a 33.62 percent increase, from P163.98 billion in 2011 to P219.10 billion in 2012, under the 2012 National Expenditure Program (NEP). She also said that from the P1.816 trillion budget in 2013, five of the six Mindanao regions will get an increase of almost 40 percent over this year’s allocation.

“It bears to point out that in terms of national allocation for the economic sector, which include budget for agriculture, Mindanao received a whooping increase of 300 percent, from P4.7B in 2011 to this year’s P20B, accounting for 32.4 percent of the national total,” she said.

According to Antonino, Mindanao has never seen this kind of budget windfall ever, but that it had only been possible under a transparent and accountable national leadership, saying that “President Aquino has a big heart for Mindanao”.

She also called to ‘harmonize uncoordinated approaches of government support services for agriculture to ensure Mindanao’s agriculture agenda is effectively met,’ stressing that a convergence of actions towards resolving issues will yield a promising future for Mindanao’s Banana Industry.(PR MinDA)