Banana enterprise in Kalinga boosts farmers’ income

By Elvy S. Taquio Estacio

TABUK CITY -- The Daram-Cudal Multipurpose Cooperative (DCMPC) here is set to increase banana farmers’ income with their enterprise project on Banana (Cardava) marketing.
    Implemented under the Dept. of Agriculture’s Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP), the enterprise will consolidate unripe bananas to increase income of banana farmers and provide a ready market for their banana produce.
    “This enterprise project will help us to encourage more of our farmer-members to shift to the production of banana because unlike corn or other crops, bananas can be grown in any weather condition,” said Juliana Salibad, DCMPC general manager.
    As an additional operation of DCMPC, the project will provide banana farmer-members an opportunity to avail of technical services, post-harvest facilities, tools and equipment to address the high cost of hauling and handling of bananas and other related problems.
    The price for banana produce is expected to be regulated which will lead to increase in profitability.
    Salibad said they learned many things especially in business planning stage of the project.
    “Starting a business without a business plan is not easy as it seems. We realized the importance of cautiously planning how to start, how to run the business, and how to generate income,” she said.
    Rocalyn Gayagay, business development officer of the PRDP Regional Project Coordination Office-CAR (RPCO-CAR), said all the items under the first tranche were procured -- a 10-ton truck, drying racks, plastic pallets, wash bins, plastic crates, trolley, and weighing scales.
    A P4.7-million banana consolidation and trading center, which is complete (as of April 10), was constructed at Bulanao, Tabuk City.
     It will soon be turned over to the DCMPC including a working capital of P555, 000 as start-up ca[ital for their enterprise.
    The enterprise has a project cost of P10.56 million funded on a cost-sharing scheme – 60 percent from the World Bank loan proceeds with counterparts from the DA (20%),  Kalinga provincial local government unit (20%), and another 20 percent equity from the DCMPC as the proponent group (PG) of the enterprise.
    Since all items were already procured, Gayagay said that a ceremony will be held within this quarter for the turnover of the goods and facilities.
    To date, the DCMPC is crafting the operations manual (OM) for their enterprise which will entail policies and sanctions on how they will effectively implement and sustain their enterprise including their financial and organizational supervision.
    “One of our future plans to sustain our enterprise subproject is to encourage our farmer-members to expand their banana production, establish partnership and market linkage within and outside the province, and process second class banana produce into ketchup, chips, among others,” said Salibad.