Philippines: Banana industry helps cushion impact of global crisis

The banana industry has kept the employment rate remain high during the first five months this year in the Davao Region, said Labor and Employment Regional Director Jalilo O. dela Torre.

Dela Torre said that based on the data in his office, during the first five months of the year there were only 1,154 employees displaced, many of them from the mining industry and the services sector. The number was even lower compared with the same period last year when there were 3,297 employees who lost their jobs.

Admitting the comparison can hardly be explained considering that the global economic crisis started hitting the region in October last year, dela Torre’s theory was that the increase in the number of employees in the banana industry has helped in cushioning the impact of the economic problem.

At present, dela Torre said the industry has about 100,000 regular workers, although he could not recall how many of these employees were lately absorbed the industry.

He said some banana company officials told them that their companies have gone into expansion, thereby needing more employees. He said one of these officials even told him that his company has even planned to expand in other areas within Asia.

The region, based on a January 2009 figure, had a 5.8% unemployment rate, atlhough Mr. dela Torre expected the figure to go a bit higher when those who graduated from colleges start registering in the coming days.

Last month, Gil M. Dureza, chief of the Board of Investments in Southern and Central Mindanao, said that a banana company is looking for a 4,000-hectare farm for its banana expansion project, although he did not name the company.

Anthony B. Sasin, spokesperson of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association, said the banana industry has remained vibrant despite the challenges that it has been facing as employment has been sustained.

Sasin explained that for every person directly employed by a banana company, there are eight others who get employed in the industry’s allied services. “So you can imagine how big the banana industry employment is,” he told the TIMES in a telephone interview, pointing out that among these allied services are trucking, arrastre and other related services.

Sasin also confirmed that some big companies have started expanding in Indonesia because of the problem that they are facing in Mindanao, particularly on securing more farms and the continued fight against those pushing for aerial spraying.

“It is very hard to expand now considering that a company will always face difficulty in negotiating for more farms. One problem is the implementation of the CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) because a company now needs to negotiate with the cooperative (of agrarian beneficiaries) before they are allowed to expand,” Sasin said.

The problem, he added, is coupled with the continued plan of some groups of imposing a ban on aerial spraying.

Last year, the city government passed an ordinance imposing a ban on aerial spraying, but the banana group questioned the ordinance before the courts. Early this year, the Court of Appeals junked the ordinance because of unconstitutionality, but the city government and those calling for the ban have asked the CA to reverse its ruling.

Lately, a team of researchers released the result of its 2006 study on Camocaan, a village near a banana farm in Hagonoy, Davao del Sur which concluded that there was a need to ban the aerial spraying. But experts commissioned by the banana group questioned the result of the study, saying there was no strong proof that could become the basis for concluding that the ban on aerial spraying be implemented.

The experts of the banana group also questioned the methods used in the research and concluded that the study had a lot of flaws. The group as well as the association of agro-chemical companies have asked the Department of Health, which commissioned the study, to order for an independent peer review of the study.


Source: mindanaotimes.com.ph


Publication date: 6/3/2009