A banana enterprise proposal recently received a go by the Project Support Office (PSO) Luzon A Cluster of the DA’s Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) to start its business of consolidating and marketing raw banana (cardava).

The Duram-Cudal Multipurpose Cooperative in Cudal, Tabuk City, Kalinga is now allowed to start with the procurement of its proposed equipment, and machineries needed to start its banana business with the assistance and close coordination of Kalinga local government unit.

This came up after the PRDP’s PSO Luzon A Cluster has reviewed the final business plan of their proposed enterprise under the I-BUILD component, and have found that all requirements have been complied with, according to the No Objection Letter (NOL1) sent by the former to the DA-PRDP Regional Project Coordination Office in the Cordillera.

According to the business plan, the banana trading suffers postharvest losses that reach up to 20% caused by lack of appropriate facilities, tools and equipment since most products are picked up along roads or sheds. Moreover, hauling and handling costs are identified as added constraints, thus the proposal.

The P13.2-million proposed “Banana (Cardava) Consolidation and Marketing” plans to consolidate unripe cardava bananas at one site equipped with proper facilities to preserve the quality of bananas for trading.

The said plan further projects that with the aim of increasing direct income of banana farmers by at least 28%, the enterprise also wants to provide a ready market of at least 1,283,310 kilograms of cardava from banana farmers on its first year of operation with a gradual projected increase of at least 10% annually.

This project aligns with the PRDP’s aim to increase farmers’ income as a development project since the Cooperative shall prioritize catering to banana farmer-members prioritizing them as suppliers of the product.### (Mabel Zabala, RPCO-CAR InfoACE Unit)