TESDA eyes training to turn bananas into feeds

27 May 2012

Training interventions are being set up to turn into agricultural feeds ripe bananas that have failed to make it to the China’s market due to its sudden implementation of stricter quarantine measures.
 
Secretary Joel Villanueva, Director. General of Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), said he has instructed their offices in the Southern Mindanao regions (Regions XI and XII) to gather relevant data needed to develop an alternative market for the country’s banana growers amid the problem in China.
 
“TESDA is taking a proactive position and is now simultaneously gathering the relevant data needed in preparation for introducing an alternative market for the country's huge banana produce,” Villanueva said.
 
Tapping the manufacture of agricultural feeds, he said, is one option that banana producers can venture into to guarantee that the fruit could be turned into profit.

Since March this year, China had tightened requirements for the entry of fruits after it claimed it had found pests in bananas from the Philippines.  Banana growers said they had lost at least P1.44 billion since the restrictions were imposed.
 
According to the National Statistics Office, the Philippines exported over 2 billion kilograms of bananas valued at $472.4 million. Of the total, 403.4 million kilograms, valued at $85.283 million, went to China.
 
China is a major market of banana exports. It also purchases pineapples and papaya from the Philippines.
 
Banana feeds are processed through natural drying. Using multi-purpose dryers, TESDA said workers and planters can efficiently and quickly convert the bananas into feeds, an alternative by-product of the fruit.
 
Villanueva said workers would undergo training on the complete process of making feeds from bananas, using the available technology for better productivity.
 
“We have to find alternatives like diversifying our markets and making new produce to make the industry less vulnerable to shocks,” Villanueva said.
 
“Rotting bananas need not go to waste.  We just have to tap the skills of our workers and the right technology to create an opportunity out of this event,” he added.
 
Earlier, banana producers and exporters in Mindanao said that they are considering tapping the government’s feeding program, as well as the domestic market, for the bananas that were not sold to China