Dujali town Mayor Leah Marie Romano. (PNA Photo by Che Palicte)
DUJALI, Davao del Norte -- A number of rice farmers in this town opted to shift to banana farming as the price of palay continues to experience a downtrend, Mayor Leah Marie Romano said on Tuesday.
Romano said the relatively high income in banana farming lured some of the rice farmers to change crops.
She said that based on the data from the Municipal Agriculturist Office (MAO), about 25 hectares of rice fields were converted into banana plantations since January of this year.
"Dujali is known to be a rice-producing municipality but our farmers are slowly converting into banana farming," she said.
During a banana forum on the same day, Romano urged the banana farmers to stick to the industry and fight the Fusarium wilt or Panama disease infestation.
"This forum will give you an idea on how to manage Fusarium wilt. We have good speakers who will give you options on how to address this problem," the mayor said.
She assured that the local government unit has continued to provide interventions such as providing fertilizers and training to the farmers.
Romano also announced that the municipality will soon acquire a banana tissue culture laboratory and a village- type trichoderma -- biological means for plant disease management.
"With these facilities, we will be able to address problems on banana pest and diseases," she added.
ReynaldoTapacal, High-Value Crops Development Program coordinator of the municipality, said they are expecting more rice farmers to convert into banana farming.
"In banana, you can expect an income every week but in rice farming, you only have two croppings in a year," Tapacal explained.
Tapacal said that a banana plantation with no Fusarium wilt infection can produce 70 bunches per week for one hectare or equivalent to 140 boxes of banana.
"Per box is at 13 kilos and if you sell all of it at PHP450 per box, you will have PHP63,000 per week or PHP252,000 per month," he said.
This municipality has a total of 2,365 hectares of individual banana farmers while about 2,375 hectares are owned by a big banana company.
MAO also noted a total of 572 individual banana farmers in the municipality. (PNA)
