RP bananas moving forward to US entry - DA

The United States’ Department of Agriculture (USDA) has assured Manila of the speedy processing of the pest risk analysis for Philippine bananas – a positive development in efforts to push for the entry of locally-produced bananas into the American market. In a statement, Department of Agriculture (DA) Sec. Arthur Yap on Monday underscored the importance of the US as a market for Philippine bananas. He noted that if this high-value crop is allowed entry into the US market, this will boost the country’s export earnings by $6 million a year. “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 in the statement. “Opening Philippine bananas to an important market such as the US will send a positive signal to our small farmers to diversify into high value crop production," he added. Yap said that in his bilateral meeting with Acting Secretary Chuck Conner of the USDA in Washington last month, he had identified bananas as the Philippine commodity that should be given priority by the US in conducting its pest-risk analysis on potential products for imports. He said Conner then assured him that the USDA would move to expeditiously conduct the pest risk analysis for Philippine bananas. Philippine bananas are being exported to Japan, Iran and Korea. Curretnly, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Colombia are the top sources of bananas for the US market. Private sector players in the local banana industry have earlier sent a request to the DA, through the Bureau of Plant Industry, to initiate the process of penetrating the lucrative US market to further raise earnings from the product. The DA 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 DA is opening up more markets for bananas and other high-value commercial crops (HVCCs), 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 DA aims to raise banana exports by 7.9 percent for 2007, which would translate into $475 million in export earnings in 2007. The DA expects banana production, which reached 6.801 million metric tons last year, to increase by 543,420 MT more in 2007 to 7.345 million MT, representing a 7.88 percent increase. The increase is due 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 DA is targeting an expansion of 35,005 hectares of land planted to banana in Davao , Northern Mindanao and the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR). Production increases are expected in: • CAR (25,616 metric tons), • Cagayan Valley (368,361 metric tons), • Calabarzon (116,072 metric tons), • Western Visayas (338,088 metric tons), • Central Visayas (171,455 metric tons), • Eastern Visayas (246,063 metric tons), • Zamboanga Peninsula (247,201 metric tons), • Northern Mindanao (714,732 metric tons), • Davao (3.249 million metric tons), • Central Mindanao (913,904 metric tons), • Caraga (229,952 metric tons), and • Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (390,594 metric tons). - GMANews.TV